Washington Football Team wins NFC East after bizarre victory over the Eagles

The Washington Football Team is the 2020 NFC East champion.

The Washington Football Team has won the NFC East. They went 7-9 on the season but after their Week 17 win over the Philadelphia Eagles, they will head to the playoffs.

The victory wasn’t pretty. At all. And for most of the game, it looked like Washington was treading water. If not for a couple of good offensive drives, a strong all-around effort from the defense, and numerous head-scratching decisions from Doug Pederson, they might’ve lost.

But ifs don’t matter in the game of football. What matters is that the team did emerge with a win and in Ron Rivera‘s first season, they will be heading to the postseason. That’s a remarkable turnaround for a team that went 3-13 and picked No. 2 overall in last year’s draft.

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Washington did a few things well in this game. First of all, their first drive of the game was their best of the entire season. Scott Turner scripted an excellent drive that allowed the team to score on their opening possession for the first time all season. That was a major bright spot and indicated that the team doesn’t have to start games slowly.

Additionally, the team led a solid two-minute drill at the end of the first half, and that gave them a 17-14 lead they would never relinquish. Alex Smith had one of his best throws of the season to Logan Thomas, who made a spectacular catch through contact with a defender and the ground to grab the score.

Those represent the two major offensive bright spots. The rest of the game from that unit was poor. Alex Smith was unable to move the ball after halftime and under pressure, he was a disaster. It’s not his fault, as his injured leg simply can’t hold up when he has to scramble and make throws. And even when he stands still, it’s hard for him to put power into his throws.

Smith finished the game 22-of-32 for 162 yards for two touchdowns but he had two ugly interceptions that resulted from him being unable to put power into his throws. Washington will have to seriously think about starting Taylor Heinicke ahead of Smith in the Wild Card Round if he can’t show better movement skills in practice this week.

The defense, per usual, was excellent. They had a rocky patch in the second quarter, but they once again held a team scoreless in the second half. Chase Young and Montez Sweat generated relentless pressure during the game and the secondary held up well, as Kendall Fuller, Ronald Darby, and Kam Curl held the Philly receivers mostly in check. This is clearly the strength of the team and if they want to win in the playoffs, they’ll need a truly elite performance from this unit to bolster a scuffling offense.

Outside of the offense and defense, the Eagles’ effort in this has to be mentioned. Pederson coached an atrocious game and at times, it looked like Philly was tanking. Down 17-14, Pederson went for it on fourth-and-goal from about five yards out. The pass play predictably failed.

As if that decision wasn’t bad enough, Pederson pulled Jalen Hurts from the game in the fourth quarter to give former Washington Football Team quarterback Nate Sudfeld a chance to play. On his first five snaps, Sudfeld turned the ball over twice. He gave the Eagles no chance to win even though Washington gave them every opportunity to do so.

In short, the game was weird. Washington was sloppy and even had a muffed punt and a fumble on their game-winning drive. It wasn’t a good way to win, but in the fickle world that is the NFL, you take a divisional title whenever you can.

Nobody expected Washington to have a shot at the NFC East title at the beginning of the season, but now, they’ll represent the team in the first round of the playoffs. Washington will take on the Buccaneers in an 8:15 p.m. ET game on Saturday night. Playing Tom Brady will be a tough task for Washington, but a good experience for this young team, win or lose.

No matter what happens, nobody can take away the 2020 NFC East title away from the Washington Football Team.