"Wow, what a difference a week makes," Kevin Sheehan said to open his show after the Commanders suffered the same fate as last week – a loss to fall to 2-2 on the year – but under entirely different circumstances in the overtime defeat at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles as Sam Howell and Washington showed plenty of good play and promise for the rest of the season.
"it's hard not to be encouraged by the way they played," Sheehan continued. "Despite losing the game in overtime 34-31. They played a high-level game in so many ways against one of the better teams in the league, who also played well. That's a real important takeaway from [Sunday]. Yesterday was not an example of say a lesser team nearly beating a prohibitive favorite who is a better team because the better team played poorly. No, that would be a totally inaccurate description of what happened yesterday.
"That's the best Philly has looked this year. Both teams played well, in some areas very well."
It wasn't mistake-free football from Washington despite not turning the ball over. But overall this was a huge step in the right direction for the Commanders after taking a shellacking at home against the Bills in Week 3.
"You know I'm not big on 'moral victories.' But I am big into progress and they made an s-load of progress in seven days" Sheehan said. "Now it can be fleeting in the NFL as we know. We know how week-to-week this league is and last week against Buffalo it was horrendous... yesterday in Philadelphia a completely different team."
Sheehan added it was one of those "hurtful losses," but for it to feel like it was a major step in the right direction, Washington needs to back it up with another solid effort against the Chicago Bears on Thursday night.