Philadelphia Eagles (8-7) at Washington Football Team (6-9)

Many wrote the Eagles off when they started 3-6, but they were a lot better than their record suggested, having faced one of the toughest schedules in the league, while dealing with key injuries on the offensive line and still managing a positive point differential. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the Eagles have climbed right back into the playoff picture at 8-7 as their schedule has gotten easier and the team has gotten healthier in recent weeks. 

Despite their recent strong stretch, the Eagles still remain a better team than their record suggests, as their wins have come by an average of 18.0 points per game, while their losses have come by an average of 9.1 points per game, giving them a point differential of +80, 10th best in the NFL. One of their recent wins was against Washington a couple weeks ago and they will face them again this week. The Eagles only won by 10 in the first matchup in Philadelphia and now will play in Washington, but the Eagles dominated in the first down rate (+7.40%) and yards per play battle (3.03), winning the game despite losing the turnover battle by two, which is not nearly as predictive of a metric as first down rate and yards per play. 

Washington was missing their top two quarterbacks (Taylor Heinicke and Kyle Allen, their top offensive lineman (Brandon Scherff), and their top two defensive backs (Kamren Curl and Kendall Fuller) in the first matchup and they will all be available in this game, but they still have a shaky situation at quarterback and they still are not healthy around the quarterback, missing their two best running backs (Antonio Gibson and JD McKissic), a trio of starting offensive lineman (Ereck Flowers, Chase Rouiller, Samuel Cosmi), their top edge defender Chase Young, and a pair of starters in the secondary in William Jackson and Landon Collins. Rouiller, McKissic, and Young were out in the first matchup as well, but Washington still isn’t that much healthier than they were in the first matchup.

Washington was blown out last week in Dallas, losing by 42 points, which normally puts a team in a good spot, as teams cover at a 56.1% rate after a loss by 35 points or more, but that tends to be because a team is undervalued after one bad week. In this scenario, the line only shifted from favoring the Eagles by a field goal on the early line last week to favoring them by 4.5 this week, despite Washington’s blowout loss and the losses they have had at running back and on the offensive line since last week (Flowers, Cosmi, Gibson). The line was too low at a field goal on the early line and is still too low at 4.5. Washington ranks 22nd in schedule adjusted mixed efficiency and are far from 100%, while the much healthier Eagles rank 7th and have blown out almost every below average team they have faced

The Eagles are 8-1 against losing teams with seven multiscore wins, with their only loss coming in a game in which they still won the first down rate battle and yards per play battle in New York against the Giants with a banged up Jalen Hurts throwing three of the nine interceptions he has thrown this season. My calculated line has the Eagles favored by eight points, so we’re getting great value with the Eagles. I want to make sure there are no unexpected COVID positives for the Eagles before locking this game in, but I will almost definitely be placing a bet on the Eagles at -4.5 this week.

Update: Nothing unexpected has happened here, other than this line moving to 4. At that number, I like the Eagles even more and I am confident making this a bigger play. Like most of their other games against sub-.500 opponents, the Eagles should win with relative ease against a relatively short-handed Washington team.

Philadelphia Eagles 24 Washington Football Team 16

Pick against the spread: Philadelphia -4

Confidence: High