When Philadelphia Eagles insider Dave Spadaro laid out “six storylines to follow” for the Week 16 trip to Washington, the matchup looked like a textbook get-right opportunity. Oddsmakers had already installed the Eagles as near-touchdown favorites on the road against a 4–10 Commanders team starting Marcus Mariota instead of injured rookie Jayden Daniels. Philadelphia entered at 9–5 with a chance to clinch a second straight NFC East crown and become the first team since their own early-2000s run to repeat as division champions. By Sunday morning, those pregame narratives had turned into hard reality: a 29–18 Eagles win in Landover, a clinched division title, and a fresh set of answers to the questions Spadaro posed.

Image Illustration. Photo by Doug Swinson on Unsplash

1. Can the Eagles Finish the NFC East Job?

The biggest storyline was the simplest: win, and the NFC East was theirs. Philadelphia delivered. With Sunday’s 29–18 victory, the Eagles improved to 10–5 and officially locked up their second consecutive division title. It’s the first time any team has repeated as NFC East champion since the Eagles themselves did it from 2001–04, a span that underscores just how volatile the division has been over the past two decades.

The win also came with broader playoff implications. At 10–5, Philadelphia remains firmly in the NFC’s top tier, sitting third in the conference standings and eliminating the Dallas Cowboys from playoff contention in the process. That mathematical clarity was exactly what the organization sought after an uneven midseason stretch.

2. Will the Offense Finally Look “Fixed”?

For weeks, the Eagles’ offensive identity has been under the microscope. Analysts like Benjamin Solak have pointed to a conservative passing structure, with Jalen Hurts throwing in the 10–19-yard intermediate window at one of the lowest rates seen from a starter in the past 15 years and posting a career-low 6.8 yards per attempt earlier this season.

Against Washington’s bottom-tier scoring defense, which entered Week 16 allowing 26.8 points per game and ranking near the bottom of the league in that category, Philadelphia’s attack wasn’t explosive, but it was functional. Hurts finished 22-of-30 for 185 yards and two touchdowns, adding 40 rushing yards. The Eagles sustained drives, controlled possession in the second half and, crucially, avoided the offensive droughts that have plagued them in recent losses to Chicago and the New York Giants.

3. Saquon Barkley’s Slump vs. a Soft Run Defense

More than any other player, Saquon Barkley embodied the Eagles’ offensive questions heading into this game. After a 2024 season in which he powered to 2,005 rushing yards at 5.8 yards per carry and won Offensive Player of the Year, his 2025 production has cratered. By late October he ranked last in yards per carry (3.3) among running backs with at least 75 attempts and was down to roughly 53 rushing yards per game.

Film breakdowns have highlighted how much of that drop-off stems from blocking and schematics rather than Barkley alone. Out of pistol formations, for example, his yards per carry have plummeted from 5.7 last season to 2.4 this year on a much smaller workload, as offensive line combinations and defensive adjustments have disrupted the timing of staple run concepts. That context made Washington’s leaky defense a critical test.

Barkley answered. He rushed for 132 yards and a touchdown and surpassed 1,000 rushing yards for the fifth time in his career, posting one of his most efficient outings of the season in a game where Philadelphia outgained Washington 385–220. For an offense that has repeatedly “run into a Saquon Barkley problem” this year, with his yards per rush falling from 5.8 to the high-3s and his carries per game dipping from 21.6 to under 17, this looked much more like the player who carried them to a Super Bowl last season.

4. Energy, Discipline and the Sideline Test

Beyond X’s and O’s, the Eagles’ emotional state has been a storyline in itself. Earlier this month, Barkley admitted that Philadelphia’s sideline energy had been “awful” during stretches of their slump, a candid assessment that echoed concerns from fans and analysts about the team’s body language in losses. Washington offered a different sort of emotional challenge: managing intensity in a chippy divisional game with high stakes.

That challenge boiled over late. Following a two-point conversion run by Barkley, a brawl broke out that led to three ejections and six penalties, with Commanders defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw and safety Quan Martin, plus Eagles guard Tyler Steen, tossed for unnecessary roughness. Barkley later emphasized that the team has to be smarter in those moments, underscoring a Spadaro-style storyline that extends beyond one box score: how a veteran-laden roster walks the line between edge and composure in January-caliber games.

5. A Defense Built to Feast on a Backup QB

With Daniels shut down for the season earlier in the week, Washington turned again to Mariota, who came in 2–5 as a starter with an average margin of defeat of nearly 11 points in those losses. This was precisely the type of matchup Philadelphia’s defense, allowing just 19.4 points per game and sitting just outside the top 10 in sacks, is designed to dominate.

The Eagles didn’t post gaudy sack numbers, but they controlled the line of scrimmage and limited Washington to 220 total yards of offense. A pivotal interception by rookie defensive back Cooper DeJean set up one of Barkley’s key scores, flipping momentum firmly in Philadelphia’s favor after a shaky first half. The Commanders, who had lost eight straight before last week’s win over the Giants, again struggled to sustain drives, a continuation of season-long issues on offense.

6. Can Key Playmakers Sustain Their Surge?

Coming in, tight end Dallas Goedert was circled as a potential difference-maker against a Commanders defense that has struggled badly to contain his position. Washington had allowed the second-most touchdowns to tight ends in the NFL this season, nine, entering Week 16. Goedert delivered again, catching a touchdown pass from Hurts to tie a franchise record with his 10th receiving score of the season, another validation of the midseason narrative that he has become one of the offense’s most reliable red-zone options.

Wideout A.J. Brown, who had caught four touchdowns in his previous four games going into the weekend, remained a focal point for defenses and an efficient outlet for Hurts, adding 95 receiving yards as part of the balanced offensive showing in Landover. If Spadaro’s storyline board emphasized anything here, it was the need for Philadelphia’s stars to look like stars again with the postseason looming.

Conclusion: Storylines Resolved, Questions Reframed

Spadaro’s six storylines framed Week 16 as both a measuring stick and a potential turning point. On the scoreboard and in the standings, the Eagles answered every major question: they clinched the NFC East, reasserted themselves as a top-three team in the conference and showed that their offense can operate efficiently when Barkley and Hurts are both in rhythm.

Yet the Commanders, playing out a lost season with a backup quarterback, were only a partial test. The more pressing questions now shift forward: can Barkley’s resurgence carry into January? Will Hurts and the passing game push past the efficiency ceiling that has nagged them all fall? And can a defense that thrives against overmatched opponents disrupt elite playoff quarterbacks the same way it flummoxed Mariota?

For one afternoon in Landover, the answers were more reassuring than not. The Eagles don’t just control the NFC East again. After checking off Spadaro’s storylines, they head into the final weeks of the regular season with something they’ve lacked for much of 2025: momentum.