Philadelphia beat Washington 24-22, and the box score is one of the stranger ones you'll see from a winning team.
The Eagles ran 53 plays. They gained ten first downs. They punted seven times. They held the ball for 26:40 and lost the possession battle by nearly seven minutes. Their entire third quarter produced 59 yards and one first down.
They also scored 24 points, because Jalen Hurts went 14 of 25 for 203 yards with three touchdowns and the offense produced explosive plays instead of drives. A 64-yard catch by Dontayvion Wicks. A 43-yard catch-and-run touchdown to Dallas Goedert. A 42-yard Saquon Barkley run. A 22-yard Hurts scramble that converted third-and-18.
That's a win built on four or five snaps. It worked. It isn't a formula.
What A.J. Brown's departure actually did
Brown went to New England on June 1 for a 2028 first-round pick and a 2027 fifth. Philadelphia spent the offseason preparing for it... they traded for Wicks, signed Hollywood Brown and Elijah Moore, moved up to take Makai Lemon at 20, and drafted Eli Stowers in the second round.
That's a lot of bodies. What it isn't is a replacement.
Brown's value to this offense was never only production. It was that a defense had to account for him on every snap, which created the space everyone else worked in. On Sunday, Washington had nobody they were obligated to double, and the Eagles responded by hunting shots rather than moving the chains. Twenty-five attempts, 14 completions, a 56 percent completion rate and 138 air yards is a passing game taking swings.
The three touchdowns make the line look good. The ten first downs tell you what the possessions actually looked like.
Hurts is learning a new offense and it shows
Fourteen of 25 for 203 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, a 122.2 rating. On paper that's an excellent afternoon.
Underneath it, Sean Mannion was calling his first NFL game as coordinator and the offense sputtered for long stretches. Three sacks, five poor throws, three throwaways, five three-and-outs, and a third quarter that produced one first down. Philadelphia's first points didn't arrive until the second quarter.
That's a quarterback and a coordinator finding each other, which is normal in Week 1. Hurts made the throws he needed and didn't turn it over. The rest should come, especially with Mannion bringing a Shanahan-tree outside-zone system that takes time to install.
The part to be happy about if you own him is the running. Forty-six rushing yards, including the 22-yarder on third-and-18 that kept a touchdown drive alive. The rushing element was noticeably less prominent last season and it was back on Sunday. That's the floor that makes him startable in a week where he completed 14 passes, and it's why he still finished as a comfortable QB1.
Goedert was the best player on the field
Four catches on five targets for 77 yards and two touchdowns.
Eighty percent catch rate, 19.3 yards a catch, and both scores. In a game where the entire Eagles offense produced 14 receptions, Goedert accounted for nearly 40 percent of the passing yardage.
The 43-yarder in the fourth is the interesting one. He caught it short over the middle and turned it into a touchdown that put Philadelphia back up eight, which is the kind of play that used to be available because defenses were occupied with Brown. That it's still there without him matters.
He wasn't flawless. There was a possession where he caught it short of the sticks and couldn't break the tackle to convert. But Goedert led this team in touchdown catches last season with a career-high eleven, he's the most reliable piece in the offense, and five targets producing two scores is the kind of efficiency that holds up.
DeVonta Smith's problem was volume, not standing
Three catches on six targets for 53 yards.
That reads like a disappointment, and it was one. But the underlying number complicates it... Smith's six targets were a team-high 24 percent share on a day the Eagles attempted 25 passes total. He didn't lose his role. There simply wasn't a pie.
Compare that to last season, when he ran a 24.4 percent target share as the second option behind Brown. The share is identical. What changed is that the offense ran 53 plays and threw 25 times, so the same share produced a third of the volume.
That's the honest read, and it cuts both ways. The good news is that Smith is being used like the number one receiver the offseason promised. The bad news is that a low-volume passing offense means he has to dominate targets rather than merely lead them, and 24 percent of 25 attempts doesn't get there.
Wicks is the one who capitalized. Two catches on four targets for 73 yards and the nine-yard touchdown, with the 64-yarder setting up Goedert's first score. He isn't someone to chase off one week, but in an offense hunting shots he's the guy running them.
Makai Lemon, the first-round pick, had a designed touch go for a loss and a catch for negative yardage. Rookie receivers coming off a hamstring-shortened camp usually need a minute.
Saquon was good, and one run was most of it
Fifteen carries for 83 yards.
Take out the 42-yarder that set up Philadelphia's second touchdown and it reads 14 carries for 41 yards. Just under three a carry.
That's the whole Barkley question in one line. He's still capable of the run that breaks a game open, and he broke one. Everything else was grinding into a Washington front that was better against the run than anyone expected. He didn't score, and Philadelphia's offensive line had sequences that looked like last year's injured version rather than the healthy one they were promising.
Some context on why this matters. Barkley went for 2,005 yards on 345 carries in 2024 and dropped to 1,140 on 280 last season, with his average falling from 5.8 to 4.1. Sunday was 5.5 a carry that was really 2.9 plus a home run.
The forward question is whether the passing game develops enough to force lighter boxes. If Mannion's offense comes together and Smith and Goedert start commanding attention, Barkley gets more of the looks that produce 42-yarders. If it doesn't, he's running into stacked fronts and his week depends on breaking one.
Washington looked like a team that isn't fixed
Washington ran 67 plays to Philadelphia's 53, held the ball for 33:20, gained 295 yards, and lost.
They had an extra point blocked by Jalen Carter after their first touchdown. They missed a field goal. They failed a two-point conversion from two yards out with a minute left that would have tied it, throwing to tight end John Bates.
Last season got written off as injuries to Jayden Daniels, who played seven games. Sunday suggested that might have been generous.
Jayden Daniels did not look like the rookie who lit up the league
Eighteen of 34 for 164 yards. Fifty-three percent completion. Four point seven yards an attempt. Two touchdowns, no interceptions, an 85.9 rating.
Some of it wasn't his fault. Washington's receivers dropped four passes. He threw it away five times under pressure from a Philadelphia front that spent the afternoon in the backfield, and Riq Woolen and Quinyon Mitchell locked down McLaurin and Diggs for most of the game, which left him extending plays and running for his life.
He also finished strong, completing nine of 11 on the final two drives, and his legs remained a weapon. He broke a 14-yard run, shook multiple defenders on a 13-yarder, and hit a 33-yard completion on third down.
But 4.7 yards an attempt across 34 throws is an offense going nowhere, and the version of Daniels who made everything look easy as a rookie wasn't on the field. His rushing keeps the fantasy floor intact. After a seven-game second season and this kind of opener, it's fair to ask whether the rookie year is the outlier rather than the baseline.
Terry McLaurin was the disappointment
Two catches for 14 yards, both of them late in the game.
One was the six-yard grab that converted fourth-and-two on Washington's final touchdown drive, which mattered. The other was his 500th career reception, which put him alongside Art Monk, Charley Taylor, Santana Moss and Gary Clark in franchise history.
None of that helps anybody's fantasy week. Two catches for 14 yards from a receiver who went over 1,000 yards in five straight seasons is as quiet as it gets, and it came against a secondary that took him away.
The context is worth keeping. McLaurin played ten games last season with a quad injury and still ranked 13th in yards per route run and fourth in first downs per route run among 109 qualifying receivers. The per-route production has never stopped. What's missing is an offense getting him the ball.
He'll be fine. But Diggs led the team with nine targets to McLaurin's handful, and it's worth watching whether that's the new order or a one-week matchup outcome.
Diggs and a rookie were the productive ones
Stefon Diggs caught four of nine targets for 55 yards and the ten-yard touchdown that pulled Washington within two in the fourth. That's his 75th career touchdown reception and his first in a Washington uniform. Nine targets led the team.
The bigger story might be Antonio Williams. The third-round rookie out of Clemson caught all four of his targets for 64 yards and the one-yard touchdown that set up the failed two-point try. Four for four, and his 64 yards led or tied for the team lead in receiving.
That's a debut worth noticing. Washington has McLaurin at 31 and Diggs at 32, and a rookie who catches everything thrown at him in his first NFL game is the kind of player whose role grows quickly. He's a name to have on a watch list in deeper formats.
Okonkwo's quiet day has an explanation
Chig Okonkwo caught a 15-yard pass over the middle that moved Washington into Philadelphia territory, and had another target broken up by Zack Baun.
He also left the game with an injury, which explains most of the absence.
That's frustrating rather than damning. Okonkwo was one of the more interesting Washington additions and he's atop their tight end depth chart. The reason to be excited about him was the idea that this offense would feature him. Week 1 didn't answer the question either way, and his availability is now the first thing to check.
Croskey-Merritt was more productive than it looked
Sixteen carries for 63 yards and the one-yard touchdown where he stretched the ball across the goal line.
Three point nine a carry isn't exciting. But seven of those runs went for first downs, which is a career high for him and the most by a Washington back in a single game since Week 16 of last season. Washington ran it 32 times for 132 yards as a team, and Croskey-Merritt handled half of that.
So the volume is real and the chain-moving was real. The efficiency and the ceiling are the problem. Rachaad White is also involved, which caps the workload, and a back averaging under four a carry in a committee on an offense scoring 22 points isn't somebody whose weeks you can count on.
What carries forward
Philadelphia won a game that didn't look like a win. New coordinator, no Brown, ten first downs, 59 yards in the third quarter. The pieces are good enough that it probably comes together, and Hurts' rushing keeps him startable while it does.
Goedert is the one to feel best about, and two touchdowns on five targets is a role rather than an accident. Smith's target share says he's fine and the offense's volume says he isn't, which resolves the moment Philadelphia runs more than 53 plays. Barkley needs the passing game to show up before his does.
Washington is harder. Sixty-seven plays produced 22 points, the quarterback averaged under five a throw, their best receiver caught two passes, the tight end got hurt, and the running back averaged 3.9. The one genuinely encouraging thing was a rookie receiver going four for four.
Philadelphia goes to Tennessee. Washington travels to Dallas on September 20, which is a defense that just gave up 28 to the Giants. If the Commanders offense is going to show something, that's the week to do it.