At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, I’ll double down on my 27-13 Eagles victory prediction made Wednesday.  Washington just doesn’t have enough on offense to really do serious damage to the Birds at Lincoln Financial Field.

But I do think this will be a close game for a while. I really do. The Redskins have some nice defensive pieces, and with Carson Wentz playing his first meaningful football since December I could certainly see the team getting off to a slow start.

The Eagles are 4-1 in their last five season openers, but four of those games have been rather stressful outings, either decided by a few points or kept close until the second half, when the Birds were finally able to pull away. That’s certainly a scenario that could repeat itself on Sunday afternoon.

Here’s a brief look back at the Birds’ season openers going back to 2014:


2018 – Eagles 18, Falcons 12

Only 232 yards for the offense in last year’s opener with a Nick Foles interception and a quirky muffed punt return on special teams.

The defense really put on a masterclass in this game, holding the Falcons to a 1-5 mark in the red zone and keeping Julio Jones out of the end zone. Late in the fourth quarter, a key three and out resulted in a punt and prime field positioning for the offense, which was then able to get Jay Ajayi going on a 8-play, 54-yard game-winning drive.

https://twitter.com/ShaneColemanNFL/status/1089590692588982273?s=20

2017 – Eagles 30, Redskins 17

It went down on paper as a 13-point road win, but this was a two-point game for much of the fourth quarter, a sloppy result skewed by the late Fletcher Cox scoop and score.

Philly turned the ball over twice, which included a Ryan Kerrigan pick-six and Carson Wentz fumble, but Washington coughed it up four times while losing the time of possession battle on their home field. The Eagles, who committed eight penalties for 76 yards, made up for that disappointment by going 8-14 on third down and allowing just 34 rushing yards to Washington running backs.

There was also this:

https://twitter.com/NFL_DovKleiman/status/906929089872789509?s=20

2016 – Eagles 29, Browns 10

The outlier among the group, Philly pulled away in the third quarter for a rather comfortable win over the pre-Baker Mayfield Browns.

Just for shits and giggles, here’s part of the box score from that game. Look how far Cleveland has come since putting this roster on the field:

Tell ya what – this ain’t your grandmother’s Cleveland Browns.

2015 – Falcons 26, Eagles 24

I honestly didn’t remember too much about this one, maybe because that final Chip Kelly year has been wiped clean from my memory.

The Birds were down 20-3 at halftime but actually made a very nice comeback effort, putting 21 second half points on the board en route to a two-point road loss.

The first half drives ended this way:

  1. punt
  2. punt
  3. punt
  4. punt
  5. field goal
  6. punt
  7. interception
  8. end of half

The interception was particularly brutal, with Sam Bradford throwing the pick on the first play of the drive, then a Fletcher Cox fumble recovery was whistled back due to a dubious penalty on Kiko Alonso. Matt Ryan hit Julio Jones in the end zone on the very next play.

The Eagles finished with 399 yards in this game, but the first half struggles contributed to a 3-12 third down mark in the loss.

2014 – Eagles 34, Jaguars 17

The Allen Hurns game. Everybody picked him up off the fantasy football waiver wire after he caught two touchdown passes in the first quarter to help put Jacksonville up 17-0 at halftime.

In the second half, Philly ripped off 34 straight points to double up the Jags at the Linc, wiping away a horrendous first half performance in front of a very unhappy crowd.

Here’s what the comeback looked like on paper:

There’s your brief trip down memory lane.

Like I said above, I could certainly see Sunday’s game playing out similarly to what we saw last year, or in 2017. Carson didn’t play in this preseason and could absolutely be rusty, and the Redskins do have some good defensive players in Kerrigan, Josh Norman, and former New York Giant Landon Collins. If the Eagles offense starts out relatively slow before settling into a third quarter groove, it would not surprise me at all.