\n<\/p>\n
This was not a terrific performance by the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, from a fumble on the opening kickoff to a pair of penalties on the tush push to three wide-left field-goal tries to a halftime deficit.<\/p>\n
Still, Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley and company eventually got going in the right direction and clinched a second consecutive NFC East title by beating the Washington Commanders 29-18 on Saturday night. The game included a late brawl after Barkley tacked on a two-point conversion to increase the Eagles\u2019 lead to 19 points.<\/p>\n
Starting plays under center far more frequently than he did earlier in the season, Hurts completed 22 of 30 throws \u2013 with 15 of those caught by AJ Brown or DeVonta Smith \u2013 for 185 yards, two touchdowns and no turnovers. He connected with Smith from five yards out in the first half and with tight end Dallas Goedert from 15 to put Philadelphia ahead 14-10 in the third quarter, capping a 17-play, 83-yard, 10-and-a-half-minute drive.<\/p>\n
Hurts also did plenty of damage on the ground, gaining 40 yards on seven carries for the Eagles (10-5), who have followed a three-game losing streak by winning two in a row. They are the first team to top the NFC East in back-to-back seasons since Philadelphia did it every year from 2001 to 2004; the gap since then was the longest drought without a repeat champ for any division in NFL history.<\/p>\n
Barkley added a 12-yard TD run for the Eagles, part of his 21-carry, 132-yard performance.<\/p>\n
With the Commanders (4-11), now losers of nine of their past 10 contests, already eliminated from postseason contention, there was plenty of green in the stands. Chants of \u201cE-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!\u201d frequently rang out and cries of \u201cCooooop!\u201d greeted Cooper DeJean\u2019s interception of Josh Johnson, Washington\u2019s third-string quarterback, who came in when Marcus Mariota went out after the opening drive in the third quarter with an injured right hand while Washington led 10-7.<\/p>\n
Mariota started Saturday in place of Jayden Daniels, the reigning AP NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year who led the Commanders to the NFC title game last season \u2013 where they lost 55-23 to Philadelphia \u2013 but has been shut down in 2025 after dealing with a series of injuries and appearing in only seven games.<\/p>\n
The chilly evening started inauspiciously for the Eagles: Will Shipley coughed up the opening kickoff when he was hit by Mike Sainristil, and Washington recovered at Philadelphia\u2019s 27, eventually getting a field goal.<\/p>\n
The Eagles went up 7-3 on a drive that was nearly all Hurts. He was 4 for 5 passing for 53 yards, including a six-yard TD toss to Smith, and added a 14-yard run, too.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say Hurts was perfect. Hardly. He missed open receivers, including one particularly egregious overthrow of Brown and another miscommunication with Smith.<\/p>\n
The Eagles\u2019 Jake Elliott managed to send three field-goal attempts wide left in the first half. Elliott entered 17 for 22 on field goals this season and hadn\u2019t missed more than one in a game. But he was off on a 43-yarder in the first quarter. Then, 13 seconds before halftime, Elliott couldn\u2019t get a 57-yarder to go through the uprights \u2013 but that one didn\u2019t count, because Washington\u2019s Tyler Owens was flagged for being offsides. Given another chance, now from 52 yards, Elliott went wide left once more.<\/p>\n
Three players were ejected after a brawl involving plenty of others from the Eagles and Commanders broke out late in the fourth quarter Barkley scored on a two-point conversion to boost his team\u2019s lead to 19 points with about four and a half minutes left.<\/p>\n
Two members of Washington\u2019s defense \u2013 Javon Kinlaw and Quan Martin \u2013 and one Eagles player \u2013 offensive lineman Tyler Steen \u2013 were disqualified after being flagged for unnecessary roughness.<\/p>\n
There was a ton of pushing and shoving, and a lot of jawing, too, as the scrum spread across the grass. Six flags were thrown by officials as the chaos ensued.<\/p>\n
Eventually, order was restored, and Barkley, Hurts and Commanders linebacker Bobby Wagner spoke to each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This was not a terrific performance by the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, from a fumble on the opening kickoff to a pair of penalties on the tush push to three wide-left field-goal tries to a halftime deficit. Still, Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley and company eventually got going in the right direction and clinched a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[12458,5890,7765,898,8703,21066,21049,8841,4084,20694],"class_list":{"0":"post-38472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-clinch","9":"tag-commanders","10":"tag-eagles","11":"tag-east","12":"tag-ejected","13":"tag-lategame","14":"tag-melee","15":"tag-nfc","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-roar"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}