'Angry Fate': Late Mistake Seals Washington Hope-Crushing 20-16 Loss to Eagles
If not for the angry oddities of fate - “real-life shit,” as the Washington Football Team coach Ron Rivera has termed it - the Philadelphia Eagles’ visit to FedEx Field for Sunday’s NFL Week 17 team might’ve pitted two clubs on an even plane.
But Eagles 20, WFT 16 tells a different story.
The Eagles are now 9-7, have won four straight and six of their last seven, and suddenly have the look, feel, and confidence of an NFC playoffs contender.
And the defending NFC East champs from Washington? This marks a season sweep by the Eagles (the WFT lost 27-17 at Philly just three weeks ago) punctuated by the effort to avoid a let’s-get-this-over-with mindset.
Rivera agreed with the notion that this game was a microcosm of the WFT's entire season.
"The biggest thing is they fought, they played hard, they gave themselves a chance at the end,'' he said. "That's all you can ask for."
Washington is now 6-10 and is in a tailspin. This loss wasn’t as devastating as last week’s 56-14 debacle in Dallas on "Sunday Night Football." But The Taylor Heinicke experience again fell short (he was 27 or 36 for 271 yards but only engineered a single touchdown drive) and the run game was largely eliminated before kickoff with Antonio Gibson sidelined, though rookie Jaret Patterson did manage 57 yards on 12 carries, plus the early TD. (Patterson also caught five balls for 41 more yards, and Terry McLaurin caught seven for 61).
The WFT did have a shot late, when with just over a minute left, from 20 yards out, Heinicke took an end-zone shot that became an overthrow and a Philly interception.
Top it all off with a defense stripped down by “real life” (now including the excused absence of Montez Sweat following the shootings death of his brother), and then pitch in Ricky Seals-Jones' fluke sideline injury, and this edition of the WFT has been generally out-lucked and outclassed in four meetings (Dallas also swept Washington) with its two most-despised rivals.
Washington couldn’t control Eagles QB Jalen Hurts, though the numbers are modest (214 passing yards, 44 rushing), or Boston Scott, who had two rushing TDs. But mostly what could not be controlled by Washington - which started the season 2-6, then mounted a four-game win streak, then fell apart into what is now a four-game losing streak induced in part by a COVID outbreak - is angry fate.
