Yahoo Sports senior NFL reporter Jori Epstein and senior NFL writer Frank Schwab discuss the TNF game between the Commanders and Eagles in what could decide who wins the NFC East and the keys for each team to win on Thursday. Hear the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” – and subscribe on , , or
Video Transcript
Commanders at Eagles has like game of the year potential.
And this is the commander proving ground.
Are you legit?
Can you knock off the Eagles?
The Eagles?
I keep saying especially on the Sunday night show, if it’s over and over, the Eagles are the best team nobody’s talking about.
And I don’t get how the Eagles are flying under the radar.
I get easy schedule and all that, but they are beating the heck out of teams.
A plus 78 point differential the last four weeks, the E I, this is just a fascinating game to me.
Maybe the game that determines the NFC East.
You look at the Eagles under Nick Ceriani.
So 2021 until now they are 23 and one when winning the turnover battle.
That is over 95% of the time they’re winning.
And if you want to say, well, of course, teams are going to win and they win the turnover battle, the league average is about 76.9%.
So 95 or 76 is significantly different.
Now, if you say, ok, well, this is a team that can win when they don’t win the turnover battle.
They can, but they’ve been 18 and 18 when they don’t win the turnover battle in that time.
So you drop from 95% wins to 50% 500.
That is a huge difference.
The problem is the commanders have not lost the turnover battle this season, Shane Daniels has attempted 262 passes as a rookie.
Do you know how many interceptions he has off the top of your head?
22?
That’s unbelievable.
That is, again, we did the same dance with CJ Strauss, the only, the only starters that are better than him at 0.8%.
Let’s see if I can get to.
It is, um, Justin Herbert 0.4%.
And Lamar Jackson, a big factor in this game is AJ Brown.
AJ Brown goes in that lineup and he, even when he doesn’t have 100 yards, he had that element of just, you have to win about him every single play.
He’s a game breaker and we know that, I don’t know that the commanders are ready to deal with that yet.
I, I don’t know that necessarily, they could stop AJ Brown for being AJ Brown.
I think that’s a huge, huge factor in this game.
I just think the Eagles are so well rounded right now.
Their defense is playing pretty well now that they, they seem to have gotten Vic’s scheme down a little bit.
They’re, they’re getting more comfortable in that scheme I think Vic is adding more stuff to their defense.
The offense plays just fine when AJ Brown’s on the field.
Like the, the there’s really been no problem with the offense.
It’s the games he missed where the offense really, really struggled.
So I think that that’s the key point like I think deserves some credit for it.
He does, he does.
Both coordinators have been good like Kelli Mo started slow and even that Cleveland game was a little bumpy.
I get that.
But ultimately, when they’re somewhat healthy, this Eagles offense has been good.
The defense has been good.
This is a, it’s a complete team the way I don’t see the commanders yet.