Washington (4-12) at Philadelphia (11-5)
Sunday, 4:25 p.m. EST, CBS
BetMGM NFL Odds: Eagles by 3 1/2.
Against the Spread: Commanders 6-10; Eagles 10-6
Series record: Commanders lead 89-85-5
Last meeting: Saquon Barkley ran for 132 yards and a touchdown, Jalen Hurts passed for 185 yards and two scores and the Eagles clinched the NFC East with a 29-18 win at Washington on Dec. 20.
Last week: Commanders lost Cowboys 30-23; Eagles beat 13-12.
Commanders offense: overall (21), rush (4), pass (24), scoring (24).
Commanders defense: overall (31), rush (31), pass (28), scoring (27).
Eagles offense: overall (24), rush (18), pass (23), scoring (19).
Eagles defense: overall (13), rush (T-20), pass (9), scoring (3).
Turnover differential: Commanders minus-12; Eagles plus-5.
QB Josh Johnson. The 39-year-old third-stringer will start for the Commanders, who are eliminated from the playoffs. The veteran has played for 14 NFL teams but will be making just his 11th career start on Sunday. He replaced injured Marcus Mariota in the first meeting between the teams and completed 5 of 9 passes for 43 yards with a key interception. With Mariota sidelined, Johnson started in the Commanders’ 30-23 loss to Dallas on Christmas and went 15 for 23 for 198 yards. Jayden Daniels was shut down by Washington after a series of injuries.
QB Tanner McKee. With Philadelphia set on resting many starters while looking ahead to the playoffs, McKee likely will be under center in place of Jalen Hurts. A sixth-round pick in 2023 out of Stanford, McKee has thrown for 356 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions in limited action in his two-year career.
Washington coach Dan Quinn vs. the Eagles
Quinn was not happy following the first meeting between the teams after the Eagles converted a 2-point conversion with 4:26 remaining to take a 29-10 lead. “If that’s how they want to get down, all good,” Quinn said when asked whether Eagles coach Nick Sirianni’s choice to try to add on those two points instead of kicking for one was disrespectful. “We’ll play them again in two weeks.” The game got chippy after Philadelphia’s conversion, with three players getting ejected following a brawl. Sirianni has downplayed any retribution when asked this week about the situation, mentioning the respect he has for Quinn and the Commanders.
Commanders: Mariota (quad) and LT Laremy Tunsil (oblique) are out.
Eagles: LB Nakobe Dean (hamstring) did not play in Sunday’s 13-12 win at Buffalo and is out. Also out are defensive lineman Jalen Carter, tight end Dallas Goedert and offensive lineman Lane Johnson.
The teams met last season in the NFC championship game, with Barkley rushing for 118 yards and three touchdowns in the Eagles’ 55-23 win in Philadelphia.
Commanders: Mariota has made eight starts and 11 appearances this season because of injuries to starting QB Jayden Daniels and has thrown for 1,695 yards and 10 touchdowns. Daniels, the AP’s 2024 Offensive Rookie of the Year, started just seven games but left three early and was shut down for the final four games of the season. … Washington has lost 10 of its past 11 games, including five by at least 20 points. … Rookie RB Jacory Croskey-Merritt ran for 105 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries against Dallas last week, upping his team-leading rushing totals to 776 yards and eight touchdowns. … Deebo Samuel tops Washington’s receivers, with 707 yards and five TDs, with Terry McLaurin just behind at 525 yards and three scores. … CB Mike Sainristill had a team-best four interceptions and Von Miller a team-leading eight sacks. DT Jer’Zhan Newton sacked the Cowboys' Dak Prescott three times last week, bringing the second-year player’s total to five sacks on the season.
Eagles: Philadelphia could get the No. 2 seed with a win and a Bears loss to Detroit on Sunday, which would result in the Eagles hosting Green Bay in the wild-card round. The Eagles can finish no worse than the No. 3 seed, via either a loss to the Commanders or a Chicago victory over the Lions, in which case they would host either the Rams or 49ers. … Philadelphia will be making its fifth straight postseason appearance, tying the club record set between 2000–04. … Philadelphia is tied for sixth in the league in turnover margin (plus-5) and is 42-2 under Sirianni, including 8-0 this season, when winning the turnover battle. … Philadelphia’s defense has been strong of late and leads the NFL in both opponent passing completion rate (56.5 percent) and opponent passing touchdowns (13). … LB Zack Baun has a team-best 123 tackles, along with 3 1/2 sacks and three takeaways. … OLB Jalyx Hunt has a team-best 6 1/2 sacks, with DT Moro Ojomo just behind at six sacks. … After slow starts, Barkley has rushed for 1,140 yards and WR A.J. Brown has 1,003 receiving yards. Brown is the only player in club history with at least 1,000 receiving yards in four consecutive seasons. … Dallas Goedert set a club record for tight ends last week against the Bills when he made his 11th touchdown reception of the season. … WR DeVonta Smith has 956 receiving yards and four touchdowns. … Philadelphia’s offense leads the league in red zone touchdown rate at 70.7 percent. … Hurts most likely will be watching from the sideline after a regular season in which he passed for 3,224 yards and 25 touchdowns. His 33 total touchdowns rank fifth in the NFL.
McKee has shown to be an adequate backup when given opportunities, and the Eagles’ backups likely will be hungry to show they belong in the NFL, especially with a chance to earn the No. 2 seed in the NFC.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn speaks during a news conference following an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025, in Landover, Md. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Philadelphia Eagles' Dallas Goedert (88) and Fred Johnson (74) celebrate after a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)
Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni reacts during the first half of an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and top Iranian officials exchanged dueling threats Friday as widening protests swept across parts of the Islamic Republic, further escalating tensions between the countries after America bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June.
At least eight people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, which were sparked in part by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency but have increasingly seen crowds chanting anti-government slogans.
The protests, now in their sixth day, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the protests have yet to be as widespread and intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
Trump initially wrote on his Truth Social platform, warning Iran that if it “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”
“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.
Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged that Israel and the U.S. were stoking the demonstrations. He offered no evidence to support the allegation, which Iranian officials have repeatedly made during years of protests sweeping the country.
“Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the U.S. interests,” Larijani wrote on X, which the Iranian government blocks. “The people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers.”
Larijani’s remarks likely referenced America’s wide military footprint in the region. Iran in June attacked Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after the U.S. strikes on three nuclear sites during Israel's 12-day war on the Islamic Republic. No one was injured, though a missile did hit a structure there.
As of Friday, no major changes had been made to U.S. troop levels in the Middle East or their preparations following Trump’s social media posts, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans.
In a letter late Friday to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the U.N. Security Council, Iran's envoy asked the world body to condemn the rhetoric and reaffirm the country's "inherent right to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security, and to protect its people against any foreign interference.”
“The United States of America bears full responsibility for any consequences arising from these unlawful threats and any ensuing escalation," said Amir Saeid Iravani, Iranian ambassador to the U.N.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who previously was the council’s secretary for years, separately warned that “any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security of Iran will be cut.”
Trump's online message marked a direct sign of support for the demonstrators, something other American presidents have avoided out of concern that activists would be accused of working with the West. During Iran's 2009 Green Movement demonstrations, President Barack Obama held back from publicly backing the protests — something he said in 2022 “was a mistake.”
But such White House support still carries a risk.
“Though the grievances that fuel these and past protests are due to the Iranian government’s own policies, they are likely to use President Trump’s statement as proof that the unrest is driven by external actors,” said Naysan Rafati, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“But using that as a justification to crack down more violently risks inviting the very U.S. involvement Trump has hinted at,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei recently cited a list of Tehran’s longtime grievances regarding U.S. intervention, including a CIA-backed coup in 1953, the downing of a passenger jet in 1988 and the strikes in June.
Protests continued Friday in various cities in the country, even as life largely continued unaffected in the capital, Tehran. Demonstrations have reached over 100 locations in 22 of Iran's 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. It said the death toll in the demonstrations rose to eight with the death of a demonstrator in Marvdasht in Iran's Fars province.
Demonstrators took to the streets in Zahedan in Iran's restive Sistan and Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan. The burials of several demonstrators killed in the protests also took place Friday, sparking marches.
Videos purported to show mourners chasing off security force members who attended the funeral of 21-year-old Amirhessam Khodayari. He was killed Wednesday in Kouhdasht, over 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Tehran in Iran's Lorestan province.
Footage also showed Khodayari's father denying his son served in the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as authorities claimed. The semiofficial Fars news agency later reported that there were now questions about the government's claims that he served.
Iran’s civilian government under reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to signal it wants to negotiate with protesters. However, Pezeshkian has acknowledged there is not much he can do as Iran’s rial has rapidly depreciated, with $1 now costing some 1.4 million rials. That sparked the initial protests.
The protests, taking root in economic issues, have heard demonstrators chant against Iran’s theocracy as well. Tehran has had little luck in propping up its economy in the months since the June war.
Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have yet to happen as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.
Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.
A woman shows a portrait of the late commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, on her smartphone during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People wave Iranian flags as one of them holds up a poster of the late commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
This combo shows President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. and Iranian Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Bilal Hussein)
