Game Preview, Week 1: Washington at Philadelphia Eagles
September 11, 2026
by Steve Thomas
Welcome to the 2026 regular season, everyone! It was unfortunately a very poor offseason for the Redskins Washington Football Team Commanders Washington, which probably doesn’t bode well for a week one game on the road against two-time defending NFC East champion Philadelphia Eagles. The fact that Washington’s coaching staff negligently chose to essentially not play any of their projected starters in the preseason will only hurt the team in terms of their preparation for such a difficult test to start the season. This is even more important given that the team is implementing new offensive and defensive systems this season. Don’t expect this game to go well, fans. That having been said, you never know what can happen on any given Sunday. Our game preview is below.
Game time & location: Sunday, September 13, 2026, 4:25 p.m. ET, Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA; Gates open 1:55 p.m. ET (earlier access to premium seating and facilities); parking lots open 11:25 a.m.
Television: FOX
Television announcers: Kevin Burkhardt, Tom Brady, Eric Andrews, Tom Rinaldi
TV broadcast map: Click here
DC-area radio: BIG-100 (WBIG FM)
Washington radio network: Click here
Eagles radio network: Click here
Satellite radio: SiriusXM: 263 (Wash. broad.), 831 (Wash. broad.)
Washington roster: Click here
Washington depth chart: Click here
Eagles roster: Click here
Eagles depth chart: Click here
All-time head-to-head record vs Eagles: 90 – 87 – 6 (last 10: 3 – 7)
Last meeting: W, January 4, 2026, 24 – 17
Eagles record (2025): 11 – 6 (1st place) / home: 5 – 3 / NFC: 8 – 4 / NFC East 3 – 3
Washington record (2025): 5 – 12 (3rd place) / away: 3 – 6 / NFC: 3 – 9 /NFC East: 3 – 3
Early odds: Eagles, -5
3 KEYS TO THE GAME
Pass protection from the interior offensive line
The Eagles have a pretty formidable pass rush from their interior defensive front. Last year, they got 13.5 sacks from their defensive tackles. Washington’s troubles in their interior offensive line have been discussed ad nauseum at this point, but the fact of the matter is that they need to get their act together one way or the other quickly, or else this game is going to go horribly wrong fairly quickly. The Eagles aren’t the team to demonstrate weakness in the interior offensive line.
Jayden Daniels‘ comfort under center
Perhaps the single biggest key to the game, and the entire season, is the ability of Jayden Daniels to operate a more traditional NFL offense from under center. We don’t really have any idea how well he’s going to do at this task since he only played one three-and-out series in the preseason. Washington’s offense is going to have to gel right from the start and demonstrate and ability to put together long, sustained drives in order to have a chance to win this game, and in my eyes, this starts with Daniels.
Pass rush from the defensive front
Washington’s highly-touted and expensive defensive front 7 needs to come through here and get enough pressure on quarterback Jalen Hurts to limit the Eagles’ fearsome passing game. Considering the amount of money the team put into the linebacker / edge rusher group the offense, the team has the right to expect quite a bit. Yes, they need to get sacks, but more importantly, they need to consistently pressure Hurts and put him in a hurry on every pass play. If they can’t do that, the Eagles offense might just be too much for Washington.
3 KEY MATCHUPS
Amik Robertson and Mike Sainristil vs DeVonta Smith and Hollywood Brown
This could easily be the “things sure to go wrong” matchup, even moreso because of the absence of Trey Amos. No amount of pass rushing is going to help if Robertson and Sainristil consistently leave two Pro Bowl-level receivers open. I expect Washington to play plenty of zone defense in this game in order to avoid situations in which Robertson and Sainristil are left in one-on-one coverage with either Smith or Brown very much. This is very much a “trial by fire” for Washington’s two starting corners.
Sam Cosmi and Chris Paul vs Moro Ojomo and Jalen Carter
As I mentioned above, Washington’s interior offensive line performed in a . . . ghastly . . . manner this preseason. That having been said, the starters barely played, so it’s possible that Cosmi and Paul are better than what we saw in the preseason. The problem here is that Ojomo and Carter are both pretty talented players and have a habit of getting to the quarterback quite a bit by interior defensive linemen standards. Keep an eye out on whether Cosmi and Paul can stem the tide somewhat and keep Daniels from facing tons of pressure right up the middle of the line. This is an important key to this game.
Cross is Washington’s starting strong safety in the team’s new 3 – 4 defense. For his part, Goedert is a talented receiving tight end who had 60 receptions in 82 targets last season. I therefore put a good bit of the task of keeping Goedert in check in the shallow middle on Cross. We don’t know yet if Cross will live up to his fairly large contract, but this is a pretty big test right at the start of the season.
OFFICIAL INJURY REPORT (active roster only)
LP – limited practice FP – full practice DNP – did not practice
NIR – not injury related Q – questionable O – out
D – doubtful
| Washington | Eagles |
| OLB K. Chaisson, knee; Wed: LP | OLB J. Greenard, pectoral; Wed: LP |
| RB J. Croskey-Merritt, groin; Wed: LP | TE E. Stowers, hamstring; Wed: LP |
| OLB O. Oweh, calf; Wed: LP | |
| C/G N. Allegretti, calf; Wed: FP | |
| LB J. Magee, chest; Wed: FP | |
| QB M. Mariota, knee; Wed: FP | |
| DE C. Omenihu, wrist; Wed: FP | |
| TE B. Sinnott, oblique; Wed: FP |
Steve’s Prediction
Sorry, folks. Washington loses this one big, by a score of 31 – 13.