This Sunday afternoon the Washington Redskins will head north to face their division rival, the Philadelphia Eagles. There is no love lost between these two franchises and their fan bases. It’s sure to be a good game, as it almost always is between these two. Here are some key story lines for the Week 3 game:

DeSean Jackson Returns to Philadelphia

This offseason there was a report from NJ.com that linked then Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson to gang members in California where he’s from. It then came out that the Eagles were trying to trade him and if they couldn’t find a partner they were going to cut him. It has never been confirmed that these two things had anything to do with one another but if they didn’t it would certainly be a big coincidence. Either way, the Eagles ended up cutting Jackson and Jackson was free to sign with whatever team he wanted to.

Of course that was the division rival Washington Redskins. Jackson would love a chance to play against the team that cut him twice every single season. Well, Sunday might be his first chance. I say “might be” because Jackson suffered a strained MC joint in his shoulder on Sunday. Doctors have said there’s no structural damage so as long as he can play through the pain he’ll be able to go. Right now he’s considered day-to-day. Even if he does play, it’ll be a matter of how effective can he be catching the ball with a hurt shoulder.

Kirk Cousins Gets First Start of the Season

With Robert Griffin III# dislocating his ankle in Week 2, Kirk Cousins will now have the opportunity to be the starting quarterback for the Redskins for at least most of the season.  Judging from last week this is a good thing. However, the stats can be misleading.

After Cousins stepped in against the Jacksonville Jaguars this past week, he ended up finishing the game with a PFF (subscription) passing grade of 2.1. This is not an exceptional grade but it’s also not a bad one. However, Cousins had the advantage of facing a defense that had prepared all week for Griffin, who has a completely different playing style than Cousins. The Jaguars’ defense had game planned for a mobile quarterback who liked to run the zone read, waggle plays, bootlegs, etc. When Cousins stepped in it changed to a pocket passer who basically only ran regular play action. So what happens when a team has all week to prepare for Cousins? Well, last year he had three starts and had PFF passing grades of 0.7, -1.9, and -3.6. Not only did he have bad games, he had the bad games against bad defenses. Those games were against the Atlanta Falcons, Dallas Cowboys, and New York Giants respectively. With a whole week to prepare for Cousins, I think the Eagles secondary gets one or two interceptions this week and makes Cousins work for everything.

Eagles Looking to Put Together First Complete Game

The Eagles have come back from rather large deficits in the second half of both their games this year. But how many times can you go to that well before it runs dry? I’m sure the Eagles don’t want to find out the answer to that question. This week they’ll be looking to put together their first complete game. If they can manage to put up some points in the first half and have a good lead going into halftime, they’re conditioning will allow them to really run away with it towards the end of the game. If the Eagles can manage to put together a complete game, I don’t think the Redskins have what it takes to stay anywhere near the Eagles.

Redskins Are Going to Pressure Nick Foles

Eagles quarterback Nick Foles has been very pedestrian so far this year. He’s missed a lot of wide open receivers and has made bad throws and he’s done this with a completely clean pocket. Once the pocket starts to collapse on him things tend to get worse. While his lows are catastrophic, his highs aren’t very high either. The Redskins know this and will look to pressure Foles a great deal. Luckily for the Redskins they have defensive linemen and linebackers who can all get the quarterback. Their best pass rushers so far this season are right defensive end Jason Hatcher, left outside linebacker Ryan Kerrigan, left inside linebacker Keenan Robinson, and left end Jarvis Jenkins. What makes this ideal is that they are getting pressure from both sides. A big name not listed here is Brian Orakpo, who the Eagles are hoping doesn’t get things going this week. If Orakpo can start to heat up, he can be one of the best pass rushers in the entire NFL.

Can LeSean McCoy and Darren Sproles Be Stopped?

If a team hopes to completely shut down both of these running backs for the entire game they’re crazy. With McCoy running the ball the way he does and Sproles turning screen passes into incredible plays almost every time it’ll be extremely hard for any team to shut that down. So what the Redskins need to do on defense is stay in their lanes. These two running backs love to cut back where the defense isn’t. If the defensive line can stay in their gaps and not over pursue, there won’t be any cut back lanes. The hardest aspect to defend is the screen pass. As I mentioned above, teams will be looking to get pressure on Foles and force him to make bad throws. However, screen passes take advantage of an aggressive pass rush.

This game is going to be a physical one. It’s also going to be somewhat of a chess match, especially between the Redskins’ defense and the Eagles’ offense. With the running backs and tight ends the Eagles are able to utilize, I don’t think the Redskins have enough to stop it. They might be able to hold on for the first half, but I think ultimately the Eagles win this game by double digits. With divisional games, you never know though.