Commanders-Eagles: Little Prep Time For Jayden-Jalen 1.0 Is A Shame

The Eagles and Commanders could be on the verge of a significant rivalry and it's a shame that the Jayden-Jalen era will start on Thursday night.

Nov 10, 2024; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels (5) carries the ball as Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen (6) defends during the first half at Northwest Stadium. / Amber Searls-Imagn Images

PHILADELPHIA - Thursday night might be the beginning of one of the NFL's next great rivalries when Jayden Daniels' Washington Commanders visit Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles with first place in the NFC East on the line.

And that's a shame.

"Thursday Night Football" isn't going anywhere because Jeff Bezos and the 1% of the 1% like him are willing to pay for a significant audience at a time when television and streaming viewing patterns are increasingly fragmented.

That's just good business from the league's perspective but the product does suffer.

The Eagles' released their weekly schedule Monday afternoon that will include a 4:00 PM ET walkthrough on Tuesday and pre-Gameday walkthrough 24 hours later. That's it for the on-field preparation for what could be one of the most important games of the season for the two teams expected to battle for an NFC East division title.

That's also not unique.

No one in the NFL has a full-blown practice when its Thursday game is on the docker and the game-planning is scaled back significantly.

Multiple NFL executives have described Thursday contests as DNA games in that you can't really prepare a specified game plan for the opponent with the lack of time so the idea is to default to what you do best as a team.

As with most things in the NFL, a standard for handling things was established and everyone else fell in line.

The biggest goal is the maintenance of the players who have to perform twice in five days in a sport you shouldn't be playing twice in five days.

However, the lip service of player safety leaves the conversation the minute the check clears.

As the Eagles prepared for what was a 34-6 rout of the Dallas Cowboys last week, a number of the quality-control coaches were tasked with starting prep on the Commanders in an effort to have as much information at the fingertips of those doing the game-planning on the flight back from North Texas Sunday night.

That's just business as usual for each team that has to go through the short week at least once a season.

It all just seems a little less okay when the stakes are significant and the preparation time is significantly scaled back.

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