The Philadelphia Eagles may have found their offensive balance by adding more Saquon Barkley runs, but some of Coach Nick Sirianni’s coaching decisions may be throwing things off balance.
Philadelphia Eagles safety Sydney Brown stretches before an NFL football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
By Chris Murray
For the Philadelphia Sunday SUN
It took a few weeks into the season for the Philadelphia Eagles offense to find the right formula for success — balance.
In other words, run the football with Saquon Barkley.
Running the ball with Barkley has enabled the Eagles to win four straight games including Sunday’s 28-23 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars at Lincoln Financial Field.
Since the Birds found their identity and decided to be a run-first team, Barkley has averaged over 122.5 yards per game. Against Jacksonville, Barkley ran for 159 yards on 27 carries, including a 19-yard touchdown. He also caught a 20-yard touchdown pass for the Birds’ first score.
Barkley’s most spectacular run came in the second quarter on an 18-yard run where he broke several tackles including a backward hurdle over a Jacksonville defender that resembled “The Fosbury Flop” made famous in 1968 by Dick Fosbury, the 1968 U.S. gold medalist in the high jump.
“It was a big play,” Barkley said, “I broke through spun …I actually did the same jump against Iowa my sophomore year, but it wasn’t as cool.”
“It was the best play I’ve ever seen … What I think is so cool is there are kids all over the country and all over Philadelphia trying to make that play and talking about that play and simulating the play as they play backyard football or Pee Wee football,” added Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. “They aren’t going to make it because I think (Barkley) is the only player that can make that play.”
On Sunday, the Birds rushed for 237 yards on the ground. Quarterback Jalen Hurts has had four straight games in which he hasn’t turned the football over and has thrown six touchdown passes during that span, thanks to Barkley’s success in the running game. Hurts completed 18-of-24 passes for 230 yards against Jacksonville, including two touchdown passes.
“We want to be a team that can be multiple and attack teams in different way, but also be really, really good in whatever we choose to do,” Hurts said.
But even though the Eagles won the game, there is still something that the team has to avoid in its quest to make it to the postseason. For the wealth of talent the Birds have at the skill positions, it is often compromised by unquestionably goofy play-calling by Sirianni.
On several occasions throughout the game, Sirianni went for the two-point conversion or had the Eagles offense go for the first down on fourth down when they didn’t have to do it. In the second quarter, the Birds drove to the Jacksonville 22 and faced a fourth and three.
Instead of kicking the easy field goal, the Eagles tried to convert on fourth down and came up short as a Hurts pass intended for A.J. Brown fell harmlessly incomplete.
Late in the first half, Barkley scored a 19-yard touchdown. But instead of just kicking the extra point, the Eagles went for a two-point conversion on the “tush push” and came up short. The score at the end of the first half was 16-0 — when it should have been 20-0.
In the third quarter, the Eagles got a 21-yard touchdown run from Hurts. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty moved the ball from two to the one-yard-line. The Eagles went for two again two other times and came up short.
The combination of the Eagles not attempting those extra points and field goals along with a costly turnover by Barkley gave Jacksonville a chance to get back in the game and eventually back to within one score of making an incredible comeback. If it wasn’t for a spectacular interception in the end zone by Nakobe Dean in the last two minutes, this game might have gone the other way.
“Today it didn’t work. That’s the way it goes,” Sirianni said. “That’s the hat I have to wear. When we get a fourth down and we convert a fourth down, nothing is really said. When we don’t, I understand there will be questions.”
If the Eagles had lost this game behind those bad decisions, questions from reporters would have been the least of his worries.
Hopefully, Sirianni will keep his baser impulses at bay when the Eagles go to Dallas to take on the Cowboys this coming Sunday. You can catch the game on CBS 3 starting at 4:25 p.m..
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