WFT (

19) at
Eagles (

25)

BY MJOHNSON >>

GAME OVERVIEW ::

• Reports out of Washington this summer point to them potentially having one of the league’s worst offensive lines in 2026.
• Commanders QB Jayden Daniels looks to bounce back from his disappointing and injury plagued sophomore season with some new weapons and a new scheme.
• Washington’s best path to moving the ball will likely involve using the mobility of Daniels and a passing attack that gets the ball out quickly and underneath.
• Philadelphia will debut their new look offense with more advanced schemes and concepts as they try to bounce back from a disappointing 2025 season.
• The Commanders defense was 27th in points allowed, last in yards allowed and 31st in takeaways last season. They changed coordinators and will have at least five new starters this season.

HOW WASHINGTON WILL TRY TO WIN::

The Commanders offensive structure will look very different in 2026 than what we saw from them the last two seasons after they jettisoned former OC Kliff Kingsbury. The Washington offense led the NFL in no-huddle rate by a massive margin – per statrankings.com, the Commanders were no-huddle on 61.4% of their plays and the second place team was the Saints at 22.7%. This season, new offensive coordinator David Blough said he expects the team to be around 20 to 30% no-huddle. Likewise, the Commanders ran the fewest snaps from under center in the NFL last season by a wide margin and instead operated almost exclusively from the shotgun. That is also likely to change in their new scheme. The other major changes are in their personnel, with TE Chig Okonkwo and WR Stefon Diggs joining the group and ostensibly “replacing” TE Zach Ertz and WR Deebo Samuel, Sr. The ironic thing there is that from a playing style standpoint, Okonkwo feels like more of a Deebo replacement while Diggs at this point of his career does more of the things Ertz provided for Daniels. Okonkwo provides the athleticism and after catch ability that the Commanders were hoping to get from Deebo, while Diggs has the savvy, hands, and route running ability to be a consistent separator in the short area of the field for easy completions for Daniels.

Looking at this week’s matchup, the Commanders are likely to need to rely heavily on both Okonkwo and Diggs to move the football. The Commanders offensive line was poor last season and will be without star tackle Laremy Tunsil for the season after he tore his triceps in August. This leaves their line as potentially one of the worst in the league and reports from joint practices in August suggested as much. That will be a problem against an elite Eagles defensive front. The Commanders are likely to struggle running the ball against the size and talent of Philadelphia, while the Eagles are also likely to be able to generate pressure without blitzing much. The Commanders WR1 is still Terry McLaurin, whose matchup on the perimeter is not great by any means. He has succeeded in this matchup before, but the poor line play will make it difficult for him to get open before Daniels has to take off or get the ball out.

Jayden Daniels has had some big games against the Eagles defense, but Philadelphia defensive coordinator Vic Fangio is no slouch and the discrepancy up front between the Commanders offensive line and the Eagles front seven is going to put a ton of pressure on Daniels. The Commanders will rely on Daniels to make plays and likely shift their passing game towards Okonkwo, Diggs, and RB Rachaad White – who is expected to split work very evenly with Jacory Croskey-Merritt this season, but whose skill set seems to fit this matchup better due to JCM’s lack of pass catching chops.