LOVERRO: Eagles just set high bar for NFL contenders — including Commanders

OPINION:

After Washington’s 55-23 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC championship game, Commanders coach Dan Quinn talked about loss and lessons learned.

Scars.

“Those tough games that leave the mark, that’s really what we’re talking about,” Quinn told reporters. “And you have to go through them,” he said. “The scars are there to remind you [that] it’s really hard to get to the game that we got to yesterday.”

On Sunday, Philadelphia quarterback Jalen Hurts also spoke of scars after the Eagles’ 40-22 Super Bowl blowout of the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs.

Hurts said he and the Eagles remembered the scars and the lessons learned from their 38-35 Super Bowl loss to Kansas City two years ago.

“Things come right on time,” Hurts told reporters after the game. “The last time around, it wasn’t our time, it wasn’t my time and sometimes you have to accept that you have to wait your turn.”

It obviously wasn’t Washington’s time in the NFC title game. Then again, in Quinn’s first season as Commanders coach after taking over a 4-13 squad, Washington certainly jumped the line with a 12-5 regular season record and two playoff wins.

NFL Rookie of the Year quarterback Jayden Daniels changed all timetables. He moved the Commanders to the front of the line. He can heal all wounds. He is the salve for the scars of disappointment.

Now it’s Washington’s turn.

That’s how General Manager Adam Peters should be approaching the roster building this offseason, armed with draft picks and salary cap space — not reckless, but not cautious, either. Not with patience, but with purpose (see trading for premier pass rusher Myles Garrett) — a purpose to return the Commanders to the conference title game.

Only this time, by the Eagles standard.

Quinn spoke during the season about the “Commanders’ standard,” and Lord knows, this franchise certainly needed one, filled with culture and secret sauce and all sorts of voodoo.

“It’s called the ’Commanders’ standard’ that they wrote together and that expectation is just us constantly searching for improvement,” he said.

But sometimes the standard is talent, and Philadelphia, with the best roster in the NFL, has set that standard.

It’s the one Washington should aspire to now.

Philadelphia manhandled Kansas City in Super Bowl LIX, physically dominating on defense, something that the 2024 Commanders were certainly not capable of.

The Super Bowl stars — Hurts, the game’s Most Valuable Player, and cornerback Cooper DeJean, who had one of the two Patrick Mahomes interceptions — recognized that.

“Defense wins championships,” Hurts said. “We saw how they played today. We saw the difference they made in the game. They gave us opportunities, gave us short fields. And we’re able to do what we do.”

“When you have a great line up front … makes it easier on the back end, and when they take the run away, it allows us to get the pass rush going,” DeJean said.

After this past season, Peters was noncommittal about the 2024 results speeding up the process to win. “I think every year’s different and every team’s different,” he said. “And so, this is where we ended up this year, but every team starts again at the bottom. And so, once this season’s over we’re 0-0 and every single day we’re just going to have to try to get better. And I know it’s a boring answer, but it really is just, we’re going to look at every single day as getting better each day and doing what’s best for the team and trying to get back up.”

What’s best for the Washington Commanders now is to reach for the Philadelphia Eagles’ standard. Because Daniels’ talent is too valuable to waste. Enough with the scars.

• You can hear Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.