The real kick in the dick on Monday night was that the Eagles had multiple chances to put together a game-winning drive, and kept coming up short.

There was the Dallas Goedert missed facemask and fumble, the Brandon Graham penalty at the end, and the three and out with an Arryn Siposs penalty. Sandwiched in between was the Quez Watkins bomb and ensuing fumble, which went like this:

So without the fumble, the Eagles would have had first and 10 from the Washington ~27 with a little more than 5:30 remaining on the clock.

Here’s what Nick Sirianni said about the sequence:

That’s something that we talk about and we think about, that you’re susceptible getting up off the ground. You want to teach him to be aggressive, and if he’s not seeing behind him, then get up off the ground, maybe run for a touchdown.

We are also aware that the defense is taught to take a swipe at that ball when you are getting up off the ground kind of the same way as when you’re going to the ground. The ball is loose sometimes when you’re that way.

We have to do a better job of coaching that. We have to think of a drill to do that. We talk about it, but obviously we didn’t execute it. So, as a coach you put yourself in that situation first and say, ‘How do I fix that?’ So, we’ll have to do a drill where we’re getting up off the ground, protecting it, and if there are bodies around us, we have to stay down on the ground.

Like I said, we talk about it, but I didn’t put Quez in that scenario in drills. We’ll get better from this as coaches, and I know Quez will as well.

That’s a good answer. You acknowledge the problem and admit that it’s not something you’ve ever really drilled, so you plan a routine to create practice reps in hopes of preventing that the next time.

I can’t put a ton of blame on Watkins for thinking he had space there. He actually cooked his man, and it was the safety who came over and tried to make a play on the ball. When he went to the ground, that allowed St-Juste to get back into the picture and atone for getting torched.

Quez said as much when answering a couple of questions postgame:

“Honestly, I was just trying to make a play. I know I didn’t get touched and I knew I had left him behind, so I just wanted to get up and get some extra yards… I didn’t have good ball security. It is always taught and I didn’t have it and it cost us.”

Ah well. On to the next one.