What to make of that Commanders game?

Let's jump right into this; we'll play "Stock up, stock down":

Stock up: Nick Sirianni's records in season openers and NFC East games. Nick has won all six season openers as the Eagles' coach. He's also won all five games after the bye since he's been here; clearly this staff does a good job with time to prepare. This win also run's Nick's record against the other NFC East teams to 22-11, including 9-3 against Washington.

Stock down: the offensive line. Last year, the excuse was injuries and there was legitimacy there; the group was banged up from the jump. This year we were told that the OL group was healthy... so what's the story? Barkley once again was hit in the backfield on seemingly half of his carries and Hurts faced immediate pressure up the middle frequently. We all saw it, and we all got flashbacks from last season. The narrative that I do not buy is that the line is actually bad; this was the best group in the league for years, so if they are actually bad now the only explanation is injury (again) or perhaps age. The narrative I might buy: this is a totally new blocking scheme that none of these guys have worked with and when you couple that with the fact that the Eagles starters basically don't practice, it's not unreasonable to expect a ramp up period. Now, if we're still seeing this in a month, it's five alarm fire time.

Stock up: Jalen Hurts. After a full offseason of angst and despite a sketchy effort from his OL, I thought Jalen played a really good game. His deep ball to Wicks early was perfectly placed. With few exceptions, I thought his accuracy was excellent. Hurts also showed more willingness to run than he did last year, with none more clutch than that monster scramble on third and 18. Perhaps best of all, I didn't see the ball in harm's way even once. The numbers bear that all out as well; Hurts is currently 12th in ESPN's QBR, 9th in ANY/A, 7th in passer rating and 5th in PFF's overall QB grades. We should temper this a bit due to the fact that Washington's defense isn't good, but this was a promising start in the new offense.

Stock down: the team's ability to extend drives. It seems that a lot of this can be laid at the play of the offensive line as mentioned above, but the Bird's offense was overly dependent on the big play and showed none of their former ability to grind teams down with long, clock killing drives. The Inside the Birds guys called the Eagles' ten first downs "absolutely embarrassing", which was understandable but still an overreaction (part of the reason the first down total was so low was that the Eagles got their yards on those chunk plays). Still, it does point out in a stark way how the Birds struggled to simply retain possession. The Birds were "credited" with four three-and-outs and also had three more drives that were six-and-out or worse. A little too much boom-or-bust.

Stock up: the defense as a whole. It's a shame that what people are remembering about the defense was that they were gassed by the end and not the fact that they absolutely dominated the Commanders for most of the game. For the majority of the game, Jayden Daniels had a completion percentage less than 50% and a yards/attempt of less than three yards/att. Combining the heat and humidity with the Eagles' struggles to sustain drives, with Daniels' ability to scramble and extend plays and with the fact that it takes the starters a bit to get into game shape when you don't play the preseason... and it makes all the sense in the world why they were struggling late. This is not something we should expect to see often, especially when Greenard gets into the rotation.

Stock down: Stefan Diggs' IQ. His unbelievably stupid celebration penalty cost the Commanders' a real shot at the upset. He either didn't know the score, didn't know the rule, didn't understand the situation or just didn't care. Any of those (or whatever combination might exist) is inexcusable for a veteran player. Just brutal.

Stock up: Jalen Carter. I think this game ought to help assuage any fears that Carter is not worth the contract that the Birds gave him. He was shut out of TFLs (mostly due to the conservative nature of the Eagles' defensive game plan) but his blocked XP and forced fumble were high impact plays. That block was the fourth of his career and was a key play in this win.

Stock incomplete: Sean Mannion's offensive vision. I've heard several talking heads from the Eagles beat already with a pretty broad range of opinions on the rookie play caller. Some think that his scheming really benefitted the passing game and some think it did a huge disservice to Makai Lemon. Some think he's at least partially responsible for the chunk plays they achieved and some think those happened in spite of him. I'm not sure it's fair to render a strong opinion yet, although you want to see more than what we did with a largely healthy offense. There were certainly some promising items but also too many shades of last season's clogged toilet offense. Time will tell but we won't know for sure what the story is for another few weeks.

Stock up: those who like to overreact to Week 1. If you're the sort of person who puts a lot of stock into these early season results, you likely think that teams like the Vikings, Giants and Cardinals are Super Bowl contenders and teams like the Chargers, Bears and Rams are toast. We get weird results in each week of the season but never more than in Week 1 (remember last year when the Raiders beat the Patriots in the first game?). Historically speaking, the only results that REALLY matter for September are 1) avoid the killer injury and 2) don't start 0-4. Philly achieved that yesterday; the rest of it is just noise for now. Again, there are ongoing offensive issues to be addressed but it's reasonably to believe that both the offense and the defense will look better as the season goes on.

Stock down: the overall quality of early season football. This is anecdotal, but I was watching the 1 PM window on RedZone with a friend of mine and we were shocked (and amused) by how terrible the quality of play was. It seemed that every highlight that Scott Hansen had to announce was a fumble or some other dumb play. No offenders were worse than that Bears-Panthers game, in which the teams were doing their best to try to hand each other the game in the first half. The pendulum has swung so far in the direction of "let's not play any starters in the preseason or run any meaningful practices" that the on-field quality is terrible and it will take some weeks to get things right. If a team wants to take September by storm, all they need to do is try in preseason and they'll stand out.