Saquon Barkley took some of the blame for the Philadelphia Eagles’ 22-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons after a late fall that would have sealed the win.
“I dropped the ball, let my team down today. Shouldn’t have put the defense in that position, made those catches, and it’s game over,” Barkley said via the team’s official website.
Facing a third-and-3 from the Falcons’ 10-yard line, clinging to a three-point lead with 1:46 left in the fourth quarter, Philly called on Jalen Hurts to hit Barkley flat. The play worked well. The running back was open with room to earn a first down.
Instead of celebrating another sensational performance as the Eagles went up 2-0, Barkley and the Eagles were stung. The quarterback intercepted the pass. Then the Philly defense was picked up by Kirk Cousins en route to the loss.
“I could sit here and complain and be upset about it, or I could be a professional athlete and go back to the drawing board and take the lick and move on and get better from it,” Barkley said. “I’ve played it many times. I’ve lost that game before, that’s the situation. It happens. It’s part of the game. I just have to be better. I let my team down, I have to man up.
The decision to throw on third down instead of running the ball to ensure 40 seconds ran off the clock burned coach Nick Sirianni.
“They were running a certain defense and they were messing it up in the middle, so we were trying to go outside, and it wasn’t working,” Sirianni said.
The Eagles had a 98.5% chance of winning before Barkley went down, according to NFL Research.
“I trust [Barkley] every day of the week to make plays, just like everybody else,” Hurts said. “We’ll be better for it. It’s not a matter of expectations, it’s just a matter of doing what is called for. And we got down at that moment.”
Barkley rushed for 95 yards on 22 carries and completed four of five passes for 21 yards in his first game in Philly in an Eagles jersey. The only straw was a killer, but that wasn’t the only reason Philadelphia lost.
The defense couldn’t stop late – or slow down Bijan Robinson earlier. Hurts forced a fumble in the final seconds with time left to get into the field goal, bringing back many late fumbles from 2023’s dismal end.
Last year, the season started to turn on Sirianni and the Eagles after things started to go haywire. How will they respond to their first real taste of adversity in 2024 with the 2-0 Saints and Buccaneers on tap?