Saquon Barkley and Vic Fangio.

This is the formula.

Nick Sirianni knows this. Howie Roseman knows this. Washington Commanders certainly know this.

You can say a lot of bad things about the Eagles’ appearance on Thursday night. He’s sloppy, disorganized and lacks serious excitement at the game’s most important position. All true and extraneous after a 26-18 victory over the Commanders put them at 8-2. The real sign of a good football team is the results of such matches. Winning ugly is not a skill. It’s an identity. It’s the first time the Eagles have done it in years.

” READ MORE: Saquon Barkley scored 2 TDs and the defense held up as the Eagles beat the Commanders 26-18 for their sixth straight win.

Are they the perfect team? Of course not. Quarterback Jalen Hurts was way more off target than he was. The head coach batted fourth to right and then watched as his former automatic kicker missed a pair of shots. The passing game appeared to be lost when DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown weren’t open in slant patterns in the middle of the field.

No they are not perfect. Far from it. That’s why they found themselves where they were at the start of the fourth quarter: trailing a less talented team at home.

But this year they are built differently. They’re built like teams that often find themselves in the thick of things deep into the postseason. They win games where they don’t look great.

Give credit to two men. Defensive coordinator and running back. Those weren’t the only reasons the Eagles won this game. But they were the biggest ones (with sincere apologies to Jalen Carter and Zack Baun).

Fangio was at his best Thursday night. Conditions were as difficult as they could be. For some reason, the NFL scheduled the Eagles for a road game at 4 p.m. on Sunday before their Thursday night home game against a division rival. In a short week, every hour counts. Fangio had 75 fewer to prepare for the Commanders offense, which had a rookie quarterback, a new offensive coordinator and exactly 10 games on tape. When the program was announced, the area was much more dangerous than you expected.

Fangio, a baseball player, was not ejected. But that was at least nine innings of one-pitch ball. Commanders, unlike other teams in the league, enjoy confusion. What makes three-headed offensive attacks so dangerous is that all three heads are on the field at the same time. Brian Robinson goes one way, Austin Ekeler goes the other way, Jayden Daniels flicks it up the middle.

” READ MORE: The Eagles ripped the hearts out of the Commanders in a war of attrition on Thursday Night Football. This is the sign of a really good team.

Washington entered the night with the fourth-best rushing attack in the league, averaging 153.5 yards per game and 4.9 yards per attempt. They had rushed for 200 yards in four of their first 10 games. The Steelers and Ravens shut them down, leading to two of three losses. Now Fangio and the Eagles have made it a fourth.

There haven’t been many opportunities to mention the Eagles defense in the same breath as the Steelers and Ravens defense over the past few seasons. But that’s where they are. And it can carry them a long way.

Look at what they did to Washington.

— Joins the Steelers as the only two teams that can hold dual-threat rookie quarterback Daniels to under 20 yards rushing in the game. The former LSU star entered Week 11 averaging 8.5 attempts and 46.4 yards per game. He managed just 18 yards on seven carries against the Eagles.

— Daniels held the always dangerous Terry McLaurin as a target to two targets, one catch and 10 receiving yards.

– He held Washington to four plays or less on more than half of their drives.

The revealing moment came with just over nine minutes left in the fourth quarter and the Eagles took a 12-10 lead. Washington was facing 2nd-and-1 at the Eagles’ 25-yard line and was already in position for a field goal.

There were really three moments.

— Jalen Carter stuffs Robinson on 2nd-and-1 for no gain.

— 3rd and 1: Same result.

— 4th and 1st Commanders avoid the go-ahead field goal to their detriment: Daniels rolls to right on a designed run. The entire Eagles defense goes along with it. Reed Blankenship and Baun hit him hard out of bounds.

It was over even before Barkley delivered the fatal blow with a 39-yard touchdown run on the ensuing drive. Actually, we’ve already watched the Saquon Barkley Game.

You know what I mean. Game. The one that comes every week and usually happens in such situations. This time it came on 3rd and 6 midway through the third quarter. The Eagles dismantled the Commander’s defense, leaked Barkley from the backfield to the middle of the field, and then watched him do his thing. After using a change of angle and speed to make his first (and only) tackler miss, Barkley exploded into the wide open field. As three Commanders defenders closed in on him near the 35-yard line, he somehow accelerated, gained at least 10 or 15 more yards, and nearly exploded out the other end like some kind of action movie hero the world had bowed to. From fumbles at their own 40 to 1st and 10 at the Commanders’ 17 yard line. That’s what Barkley did, just like he does seemingly once a week: he flipped the pitch and the script. After a field goal by Jake Elliott and a quick three-pointer, the Eagles took the ball and made that all-important assignment: the team you choose to be.

It’s a devastating combination: a running back who can do things no other running back can, and a veteran defensive coordinator who has spent several months learning how to use the vast trove of weapons at his disposal.

The Eagles are tough. They will have a difficult start.