Ill Communication

LANDOVER, Md. – The game was essentially supposed to be another on the schedule for the Philadelphia Eagles, winners of 10 consecutive and regarded as one of the NFL’s leading Super Bowl contenders.

Sunday in Landover at Northwest Stadium afforded the visiting Eagles an opportunity to clinch the NFC East – a “hat and T-Shirt” game, if you will – but the preparation and detail that the Eagles pride themselves on in the week leading up was business as usual.

But in a game marred by sloppiness – namely penalties and execution blunders – it was the Commanders who made fewer mistakes and ultimately prevailed, with a 36-33 comeback win.

Perhaps no sequence encapsulated the turbulent and chaotic nature of a divisional slobber-knocker than the game-altering play that the Commanders capitalized on for the go-ahead touchdown – also a blunder from the Eagles’ most consistent unit.

GETTY IMAGES: Former Eagles WR Olamide Zaccheaus scored a go-ahead TD for the Commanders on a blown coverage.

With nine minutes,18 remaining and the Eagles leading by six, the Commanders went no huddle. After taking the snap from shotgun, Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels felt the initial rush from Eagles rookie Jalyx Hunt and veteran Josh Sweat and moved momentarilly to his right.

On the other side of the ball, a normally well-oiled Eagles secondary was teetering. Safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson – arguably the heartbeat of Vic Fangio’s defense – had been ejected, players had been shuffled in and out of the lineup due to injuries, and now there was a major disconnect in terms of substitution.

Cornerback Darius Slay was caught in limbo, noticing that fellow cornerbacks Kelee Ringo and Isaiah Rodgers were already on the field.

Slay, who missed some time Sunday, was ready to reenter, but along the way, there was a breakdown in communication.

Noticing the state of flux in the Eagles’ secondary, Daniels acted quickly, observing the busted coverage and lofting a pass down the right sideline to a wide-open Olamide Zaccheaus.

Ringo, who seemingly found himself in no-man’s land, was in the vicinity, but Zaccheaus shook off his tackle attempt and continued into the end zone, dodging a Reed Blankenship tackle attempt just before capping the 49-yard connection.

“It was just communication,” Slay said after. “Just that we had too many guys on the field, and I saw Kelee [Ringo] coming in, and then I just tried to run off because he was locked in doing his job. Our coach told him to. But yeah, that was just miscommunication with the defense.

“I was just running out there because I was ready to go back in. I probably should have let my DB coach know; I let my other DB coach know that I was ready to go. I should have let my DB coach know.”

But why was Ringo, perhaps the dime defender with Rodgers in at cornerback, even in at the time?

Rodgers was already in the game for Slay, and for his part, Slay was coming in for Rodgers.

“I don’t know how that played out, really,” Slay said. “I was already coming in to get Isaiah just to get him, because that’s what I was gonna do. And then all I know, I just saw Kelee sprint on, but Coach told him to go in.”

The play was arguably the most prominent of what was a comedy of errors for the Eagles against their NFC East rivals. It dangerously gave a team with building optimism enough confidence to play loose.

A pair of 50- and 40-yard Jake Elliott field goals would allow the Eagles to retake the lead, but substitution lapses like those were blemishes that characterized last year’s Eagles defense, not this version.

And certainly not in critical moments, when stakes are highest.

“The best way to play good defense is everyone be on the same page,”  head coach Nick Sirianni said. “So, I’ll have to watch the tape, I’ll have to see what happened there. We had a substitution that wasn’t good enough there. Had some penalties and some sloppy play today that cost us.

“I’ll have to look at that part of the tape, but we obviously busted the coverage, that’s how he was wide open. So, not everybody being on the same page, and again with the substitution there. So, we’ll look at that and we’ve got to be better than that.”

– Andrew DiCecco (@AndrewDiCecco) is a Staff Reporter/Content Producer for InsideTheBirds.com.