Eagles and Commanders Updates: Critical NFL East Battle Tonight

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00:00Let's start with Thursday night Intel for this great game tonight in your backyard at the link

00:05in Philadelphia. It's Washington against Philadelphia and a battle in the east. And of

00:12course the Eagles are on top of the division now after the Steelers stole one at the dump and land

00:17over on Sunday. What a game that was. It was an amazing game. You and I talked about that last

00:22week. But look, when you look at Washington's situation, let's call it like it is, they're

00:26well ahead of schedule. No one is expecting to be a playoff team, which they almost certainly

00:29will be. They've got a very good schedule, really, the rest of the season. In fact, I would argue,

00:34based on my strength of schedule, that the commanders have a better schedule than the

00:37Eagles do. Now, let's start with the commanders for this game. It's pretty significant what

00:42they're dealing with on the offensive line. When you look at it, both tackles are hurt.

00:46Their center, Beattis, will play tonight with three different injuries. They're really banged

00:50up. Their offensive line, quite frankly, is overachieved. This does worry me. The Eagles

00:54pass rush, which has not been great, it's getting better. Now, Vic Fangio, the Eagles defense

00:58coordinator, does not like the blitz. He plays more of a coverage-based defense. I'll be

01:02interested to see what they do tonight. That's a great matchup. Vic Fangio versus Cliff Kingsbury,

01:08the offensive coordinator, who, by the way, Washington interviewed for the Eagles offensive

01:13coordinator job, didn't get it, because they could not agree on staffing, or he would have gotten it

01:18over Kellen Moore, which is kind of interesting. But the commanders are very banged up on the

01:22offensive line. Their right tackle, Andrew Wiley, has a shoulder injury. They thought he was going

01:27to start last week. He wound up not playing at the last minute, so they had to make a last-minute

01:31change and helped out Trent Scott at right tackle. Their left tackle, it just depends who's available.

01:38I'm told Cornelius Lucas, they felt a lot better about him playing this week than last week.

01:43Brandon Coleman, their rookie out of TCU, who they like a lot, who could play guard, right tackle,

01:47left tackle. They want him to be their left tackle. He now has a shoulder injury. So, Scott,

01:52we'll get the Eagles in a minute, but we sum up the commanders' issues.

01:55Right now, they're all on offense, save for one issue. Marshawn Lattimore will not play. He has

02:01yet to practice in the last three weeks. In fact, it's been almost four weeks since he's practiced.

02:06Going back eight years, Scott, he's had hamstring problems throughout his career,

02:10going back to Ohio State, and he's not playing. They don't have an exact timeline. First,

02:13they want to get him into practice first, so he can learn the scheme and then decide exactly when

02:17he's going to play. But he's not playing tonight. Sanders Still, the second rounder, who I'm told

02:22will move to nickel once Lattimore's ready to play on the outside, he's still going to play on

02:26the outside right now. Mike Sanders Still, the outstanding second rounder out of Michigan.

02:29Well, I mean, they got this guy to shore up their back end and be ready for the playoffs.

02:38Do you believe that the loss to Pittsburgh, coupled with a loss tonight, if they lose in

02:44Philly to the Eagles, which could very well happen, would create a snowball effect where

02:50they'd be starting to look possibly like they could be in trouble? Because there's a lot of

02:54good teams in the NFC, and they went out and gave up three draft picks for Lattimore, and the guy's

02:59got a shot hamstring. He's a shut down guy. There's no doubt about it, but I can tell you, I

03:06loved it. I was looking at my chops. He wasn't playing against Pittsburgh last week, and they

03:09went in and won the game. I mean, Scott, we talked about this last Thursday when I told you it wasn't

03:13out yet, but what I was hearing, he wasn't going to play. In fact, they didn't have an exact timeline.

03:17We're still there. We're still there. We don't know exactly. Now, here's the thing, though,

03:22when you look at this game. Dan Quinn is a really good head coach. You know what happened in Atlanta.

03:27He really should have won that Super Bowl. I think we all know that against the Patriots,

03:31somehow they lost, but there's a major buy-in. They don't have a lot of talented players,

03:35but what they think internally is there's a major buy-in from the players with these schemes and

03:40the coaching staff. They play with a lot of discipline. Now, on your point about what would

03:45happen if they lose this game. Could there be a snowball effect? They had the emotional win,

03:49a shocking win at the end. We know what happened against Chicago that game. They shouldn't have won

03:54one on a Hail Mary. You have that extremely physical and tough game. They blew a 10-point

03:58lead, Scott, on your point. Very physical game that they lost last week to your Steelers.

04:03Now, look, it's not like they're going far. They're taking a train ride, which is two and

04:09a half hours, but it's just the physical toll that it takes on you. To me, the Eagles right now are

04:15the team that should have...I don't see them struggling tonight. It'll be a competitive

04:19game. We know these Thursday night games, you never really know. Division-wise, the Eagles

04:24in Washington have not been good at the same time in well over a decade. That's how significant this

04:28game is. As you mentioned, whoever wins this game will have a really nice lead here in terms of the

04:33head-to-head and so forth what goes on, but I'm telling you, Washington, even if they lose tonight,

04:37their schedule is still really good. The Eagles still have, after this game, they got to play

04:42at the Rams next Sunday night. They got to play your Steelers. They got to play Washington again,

04:48and they also have to play in Baltimore against the Ravens.

04:51They still have a harder schedule than those commanders.

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