Eagles Rookie Helps Take The "Scary" Out Of Commanders Elite Receiver

It was business as usual for the Philadelphia Eagles' first-round pick.

Nov 3, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Quinyon Mitchell (27) walks off the field after a victory against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images / Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

PHILADELPHIA – Noted trash talker Brandon Graham had a little piece of verbal garbage to throw Terry McLaurin’s way when the Eagles hosted the Commanders on Thursday night.

“I told him, 2-7 is gonna get you, he’s gonna get you,” said Graham on his way out of the locker room after the Eagles tagged Washington with a 26-18 loss in a battle of NFC East heavyweights. “I didn’t know he was gonna get him like that.”

The reference to 2-7 is the jersey number worn by Eagles rookie Quinyon Mitchell, and, yeah, the rookie cornerback got McLaurin, all right. It’s not clear how much Mitchell did or Jayden Mitchell who didn’t.

Whatever the case, Mitchell covered McLaurin on 20 of 25 McLaurin routes, per NextGenStats, and Daniels never went in McLaurin's direction on those snaps. So, basically, he shut him down.

Daniels, the Commanders' rookie quarterback, looked like, well, a rookie. He never appeared to look McLaurin’s way much. The receiver known as “Scary Terry,” wasn’t very scary at all despite coming into the game as the NFL’s third-leading receiver with 47 receptions for 711 yards, a 15.1 yards per catch average, and six touchdowns.

In the loss, he had one catch for 10 yards. Period. He was only targeted twice, and the first time didn’t come until the first quarter.

Was that because Mitchell locked him down or because Daniels, who was under duress from the Eagles’ pass rush most of the night, didn’t see him? What?

McLaurin said that the Eagles didn’t do anything they weren’t expecting.

“The ball just didn’t come my way,” he said. “It happens. I can only control what I can and I’m just gonna focus on that.”

The receiver did throw some flowers Mitchell’s way.

“I think he’s a good corner,” said McLaurin. “He played well. He does't really play like a rookie.”

Mitchell isn’ a brash talker. Heck, he doesn’t even like to talk much about himself, so all he had to say about the job he did on McLaurin was, “I feel like we did, defensively, we did a good job with him and their offense just limiting explosives. I feel like we had great preparation and went out and executed.”

Head coach Nick Sirianni didn’t give Mitchell much credit, either, calling the job on McLaurin, “just good team defense."

The corner and receiver will see each other again on Dec. 22 in Landover, Md., for the rematch, so the less said, probably the better, but Mitchell has been shutting down top-level receivers for the first 10 games of his career, probably long enough to make this determination: The Eagles have themselves a bona fide shutdown corner.

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