Thursday Night Football

Market

The look-ahead price was Eagles -3.5, and despite some early-week resistance, it’s starting to climb up to -4 at most spots.

The total opened 49, lower than the 50 we saw on last week’s early pricing and saw some more action to the under yesterday. Ultimately, we went right back up and have now pushed through 49 after some money has come in on the over this morning.

Injuries

The Eagles will have a nice shot in the arm to their offensive line, with LT Jordan Mailata returning from a stint on the IR for a hamstring injury.

Aside from that, this is an incredibly healthy team. No one else will have any injury statuses heading into the game. WR Devonta Smith was limited in practice a bit this week with a hamstring injury, but he’s still expected to be a full go, even on the short week.

The big concern heading into tonight is the offensive tackles for the Commanders. LT Cornelius Lucas, RT Andrew Wylie, and OT Brandon Coleman are all listed as questionable. Lucas was able to get in some limited practice this week after missing the past two games, while Wylie was out for the Steelers game with a shoulder injury. C Tyler Biadasz was also limited this week, but is not on the final injury report.

The Commanders will again be without K Austin Seibert. Zane Gonzalez will step in to take over kicking duties; he did a fine job last week.

The team still will not get to trot out newly-acquired CB Marshon Lattimore yet. The former Saint just is not quite ready to go as he’s still dealing with a hamstring injury. LB Nick Belore has also been ruled out with a knee injury. He’s mainly been a special teams player.

Matchup

What a matchup. It’s been two straight weeks of good, maybe great TNF games now.

A lot of folks are starting to clamor a bit about the Commanders and the possibility that they are not as good as their record may reflect. They only have one win over a team with a winning record, the QB is getting close to where a rookie wall could be, and suddenly, they may be in a bit of a tussle for a wildcard spot after looking like they could cruise to a division win just a few weeks ago.

The eye test seems to support the fact that this is a good team. Maybe not a Super Bowl contender, but really, how many teams are? This defense has improved quite a bit under Dan Quinn over the past few months, and it’s fair to say there are plenty of teams wishing they had the opportunity to get Jayden Daniels on their team. I guess I’m trying to say that it’s a bit of a half-truth. This squad lost to Baltimore and Pittsburgh, but they didn’t embarrass themselves.

They’ve struggled in the red zone at times but have found ways to get close wins against teams they should beat. Sometimes, a team is just properly rated and I think this is a good team that needs a few more pieces to really become a threat to win multiple playoff games. That may be disappointing to fans who were bathing in the hype just a few weeks ago, but I’d ask them to take a deep breath and think about where this team was over the past 20 years or so (last playoff win: 2005). The future is bright.

I actually struggle a bit more with the other team in this matchup. I feel like we should be seeing even more domination from the Eagles. Sure, the scoreboard looked good at the end of the Cowboys game, but they played with their food a little too much early on for my liking. Maybe this is the game where we find out if Siriani is a good coach and an asset to a team that could make a playoff run… or a burden to a team full of stars.

At the end of the day, It should down to the simplest old-school matchup there is: As is usually the case, the Eagles should be able to run. While we’ve seen improvements in the defense for Washington under Quinn’s tutelage, the run stop has not improved, and there are some pretty bad grades/metrics for a few of the players up front for the Commanders. If Sirianni and Kellen Moore have the common sense God gave a potato, he’ll be attacking with outside runs first and then picking on the young cornerbacks once the stacked boxes show up to slow the bleeding.

This sounds simple, but how many teams are set up with a Saquon, AJ, and Devonta trio that fits this game plan to a tee? I think I’ll be personally offended if the Eagles can’t move the ball against people like Benjamin St Juste and Clelin Ferrell.

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t look at the most fun matchup of the night: Jayden, Kliff, & Terry vs this young cornerback duo. Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell coming on to supplement a secondary that already had Darius Slay, Reed Blankenship, & CJGJ is what makes me think this could be a team that has a ceiling that ends in New Orleans in February. Since installing DeJean into this lineup a little over a month ago, it’s been slowly working it’s way up the ratings for me and is now my top rated pass coverage unit. Sometimes things just work out in the draft, and while fellow rookie Terrion Arnold has struggled a bit in Detroit, Mitchel is averaging just over 30 yards given up per game on coverage targets and has not yet allowed a TD. This should be quite the rest for the young Washington QB.

Betting

I will be passing here for once (I agree with the move up in the total if you can find a stale number, you degen).

I upgraded the Eagles for their OL health, and my raw numbers still disagree with the market and show some value for Washington. It’s the massive disadvantages they’ll have against the Philly run game and some of the best receivers they’ve seen in a while that scares me off of it. Keeping the powder dry for the weekend

Nothing tonight. Might have some small bets on props. Digging in on the matchups for A.J. Brown, expecting him to excel here (hot take).

See you at halftime.

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