PHILADELPHIA — He knows.“We had frustrations throughout the game,” Washington Commanders receiver Stefon Diggs said after the Philadelphia Eagles’ 24-22 win Sunday. “Finally, we get one, and I get a little overzealous, I get a little excited. Of course I take responsibility.”Diggs’ unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after his 10-yard touchdown catch from Jayden Daniels with 10 minutes left in the game was the biggest miscue in Washington’s loss. There were, though, others. After Daniels’ 1-yard scoring pass to rookie Antonio Williams with 1:01 left, Washington attempted a 2-point conversion to tie it. But Philly defensive tackle Moro Ojomo blew up David Blough’s play — a shovel pass from Daniels to tight end John Bates — by beating a double-team block by center Nick Allegretti and right tackle Josh Conerly Jr., and stopped Bates short of the goal line.Washington’s offense showed some good things at the Linc, but there were too many mistakes to beat a beatable Eagles team in the regular-season opener. Diggs’ was the most obvious; a vet can’t do that, even though the league’s rules on what you can and can’t do in celebration are kind of inconsistent. (You can hide behind the goal post, for example, but you can’t hug it.)Everything matters along the margins, and especially in divisional games. Now the Commanders are behind the eight ball a week into the season, with as close to a must-win — on the road, again, against an NFC East foe, again — at the Dallas Cowboys next week.Top Plays from Commanders @ EaglesTeachable moments are important, to be sure, for a team’s growth. But road dubs count for more when everything gets added up at season’s end.For most of the first three quarters, the Commanders offense, and Blough, its first-year offensive coordinator, got very little done, wasting multiple opportunities given to it by Washington’s defense, which stacked three-and-outs much of the night and forced seven Eagles punts. (To be sure: The defense gave up a handful of killer big plays, too.) Washington’s offense produced a field goal on its first possession, then didn’t move the ball again until its next-to-last possession of the first half. Eagles linebacker Zack Baun was just … everywhere.They have to be better.But.Sunday marked the first time Daniels started and finished a game for Washington since Oct. 13, against the Chicago Bears. Think of that: It’s almost been a year since Jayden Daniels actually played four full quarters for the Commanders. That is a significant hurdle for him to overcome, after his disastrous 2025, which included separate hamstring, knee and elbow injuries that limited him to seven games. He is the North Star for owner Josh Harris’ team, capable of doing great things when on the field. With Daniels, Washington has a chance.He wasn’t dropping dimes in buckets 60 yards downfield Sunday. He wasn’t whirling around the field, play after play, with the ball in his hands. He ran when he had to. But he didn’t take off at the first sign of trouble.“It’s great to have Jayden back,” Dan Quinn said.“I thought that was significant. It was good to see him also learn some lessons from ’25 — making a play, get down, throw the ball away. Those are things that, as a coach, I don’t really know until we get into the games. He’s such a competitor. I thought, man, it’s good to have him back into this space.”Daniels, in his third season, looked like a quarterback who understood his importance. He didn’t take off at the first sign of pressure. He tried to climb the pocket and throw downfield, and when that wasn’t available, he threw the ball away. He ran Blough’s plays well, and spread the ball around. The Eagles played cloud coverage with safety help on Terry McLaurin most of the day, so Daniels went to Williams, Diggs and Chig Okonkwo. Washington wants to get McLaurin 10 targets a game. He had four Sunday.It took Daniels and the offense a while to get going, but the Commanders scored touchdowns on both of their fourth-quarter possessions. Bill Croskey-Merritt and rookie Kaytron Allen had good interior runs (and BCM was bailed out when Conerly recovered his fumble on the last drive, at the Eagles’ 19), as Washington averaged better than 4 yards a carry against the Eagles’ stout front. Williams had four catches for 64 yards in his NFL debut.“We stopped shooting ourselves in the foot, being in third-and-longs, especially against a really good defense like that, and especially away,” said Daniels, who was 18-of-34 for 164 yards and two touchdowns. “You don’t want to play in third-and-longs and let that crowd and that defense feast and rally to the ball. We shot ourselves in the foot too many times. … Obviously, the loss sucks. You don’t want to come out here and lose. Credit to Philly. But, God bless, I’m just happy to be out here playing football again.”As the game went on, the offensive line gave Daniels more time. The backs did an excellent job, for the most part, in blitz pickups, and Daniels started getting the ball downfield.“I don’t think it’s really about clicking; you just have to keep going,” left tackle Brandon Coleman said. “You have to trust, in everything. We have huge amounts of trust in Blough; he has huge amounts of trust in us. So just making sure that we played to the standard we’re supposed to.”Daniels had an option, on the 2-point attempt, to pull the ball back before the shovel pass and go to running back Rachaad White in the flat. If he had done so, White was wide open. But Daniels stuck with the initial read.“It was an option, but I’ve got to do my job, too,” Daniels said. “The defensive end played up the field. We had the look that we wanted. We just didn’t execute.”The Commanders won’t likely be able to repeat the magical season Daniels and the offense had in 2024, when the Commanders unleashed him upon the league. They play more deliberately now, and don’t want him taking off as much. The new plan, which must work for anything else to matter, is to play games such as Sunday’s, where the offense might take a while to get in sync before clicking, and where the defense and special teams will have to carry more of the load, at least early on. It’s not as electrifying, but if it gives Daniels a better chance to stay in one piece game after game, season after season, the Commanders will take the tradeoff.