State of the NFC East: Eagles remain on top of the mountain

Carson Wentz continues to struggle as Washington sits at 1-4 after five weeks.

Most of the NFC East’s teams have been a surprise. The Washington Commanders have not been. We expected them to be awful, and they are. After an opening-weekend win, they’ve lost four straight games, and they’ve been outscored by a 106-62 margin over that stretch.

Before we get too critical about Washington, they are scoring in the first half now. They’ve racked up 17 points these past two weeks after being blanked in the first half by the Eagles and Detroit Lions.

Despite throwing for 529 yards with three touchdowns in the last two games, Carson Wentz’s play has been erratic, and that’s putting things mildly. The former Eagles signal-caller is shooting his own team in the foot. He’s been picked off three times in the last two games, often at the most inopportune times.

His worst interception of the past two weeks came in the late stages of Washington’s loss to the Tennessee Titans. He helped engineer an 18-play, 87-yard drive that had the Commanders on the doorstep of scoring with 13 seconds left in regulation, but instead of throwing the game-winning touchdown, he sealed the deal by tossing a game-ending interception.

To make matters worse, Washington’s head coach Ron Rivera seems to have lost faith.  Check out his comments following Week 5’s loss.

Rivera later apologized for singling Wentz out and seemingly throwing his quarterback under the bus, but this isn’t a good look for a team that is in total chaos and needs something if not anything good to happen.

Washington looks to right the ship on Thursday Night Football versus the Chicago Bears to open the Week 6 slate. Another loss puts the Commanders in danger of falling further out of contention early in the 2022-2023 NFL regular season.