Commanders @ Eagles Week 4 Game Preview

Washington Commanders @ Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles will welcome the Commanders for an NFC East showdown on Sunday afternoon. 

The Commanders came crashing back to Earth last week after their 2-0 start. Sam Howell threw four interceptions (one in each quarter, funny enough) as they got housed by the Bills 37-3. The matchup doesn’t get much better this week against a 3-0 Eagles team with a +25 point differential that doesn’t seem to have hit their stride yet.

Philadelphia got a win on Monday night against the Buccaneers, but they have yet to start fast, scoring just one offensive touchdown in the first half of each of their games so far. 

Unsurprisingly, the Eagles are 8.5-point favorites at home in this one, and with a 44-point game total, Vegas believes there’s a chance for some scoring. Both teams rank in the top 10 for situation-neutral pass rate, which should help keep the game up-tempo.

The Eagles managed to get A.J. Brown going last week to the tune of 9/131/0 and will look to build on that performance as they try to regain the elite offensive production they put up last season.

The passing game flows through Brown and DeVonta Smith, who have combined to see 57% of the team’s targets this season, and both are top 12 WR options in the Fantasy Life Week 4 rankings. 

The backfield seems to have settled into a two-man committee, with D’Andre Swift and Kenneth Gainwell handling all of the RB touches in Week 3. Swift is certainly the more explosive player but both guys should be fantasy relevant on a weekly basis in this Philly offense.

The Washington defense has been middle of the pack against most positions, so all of the usual suspects from the Eagles should be in your lineup this week.

When Washington is on offense, they will likely be focused on limiting turnovers after giving the ball away 5 times last week (Howell’s 4 INTs and an Antonio Gibson fumble). This could lead to more of a run-heavy approach to start, but that may be difficult to stick with against a tough Eagles run defense that has given up the fewest points to opposing RBs this season.

Brian Robinson has fully taken over this backfield, with Gibson losing 2 fumbles on just 14 touches this season, but Robinson is just a low-level RB2 in this matchup.

The combination of a tough run defense and a good Philly offense means I’m expecting Sam Howell to have to throw the ball plenty in this game to try to keep up. Hopefully, he can get on the same page as his receivers this week, as neither Terry McLaurin nor Jahan Dotson has finished as top-24 WRs in any week this season.

Both players have had solid usage thus far but have failed to put up big performances. The Eagles' defense has given up 300+ passing yards in two of their first three games, so the Commanders' offense does have some sneaky upside this week if they are chasing the game. 

I agree with Vegas that this should be a relatively easy win for the Eagles. But the thing I am most interested in is if Sam Howell can bounce back from last week. I’m not sold on his job security, so he can’t afford multiple bad games in a row, or the calls for Jacoby Brissett will grow loud quickly.