Saquon Barkley carried Eagles to a key NFC East win, and his offseason signing is looking like a home run for Philly

PHILADELPHIA – With 7:46 left in the third quarter, Saquon Barkley watched Bobby Wagner bomb.

Then, the Philadelphia Eagles running back slipped into the gap the linebacker had fled from, an easy check awaiting Jalen Hurts should he decide to use it.

Some profit seemed likely. Then Washington Commanders safety Percy Butler missed a tackle. Suddenly, the Eagles’ star offseason signing had 43 yards.

Philadelphia still wouldn’t break its next three-quarter touchdown drought. The Eagles also failed to build a lead in any of the first three quarters of their NFC East matchup against the Washington Commanders.

But the dam was wearing out. And soon it would explode.

Riding Barkley’s surge of 198 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns, the Eagles beat a surging Washington team, 26-18, on Thursday night. Philadelphia, which improved to 8-2 with a head-to-head victory over the division’s closest competition, is now firmly in control of its playoff destiny.

No one in Philadelphia, including Barkley, is suggesting that the Eagles’ latest win or their success in 2024 so far is the result solely of the veteran New York Giants running back reviving his career in Philadelphia.

But when Barkley recorded his sixth 100-yard rushing game of the season (tying his mark from the previous four seasons) combined) and led the NFL with 1,137 rushing yards, everyone agrees that an Eagles team built to boost a running back is benefiting greatly from his services.

There are simply too many weapons for opponents to stop them all for four quarters. Barkley is a key ingredient in this pick-your-poison attack.

“He did a good job today,” Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts said. “I have been talking about how we are multiple and that we have a multiple approach. It may look different. And so I think as we embrace that as a football team, how different these things can look and how we’re successful and how we score points and produce, I think we’ll be able to continue to diversify in our efficiency.”

Eagles general manager Howie Roseman didn’t look at his roster this offseason and decided that extensions to receivers AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith gave him free rein to bolster his running game. Roseman also didn’t assume that his always-strong offensive line would simply propel any free-range cow to success.

Roseman did what is rarely done and signed a talented but aging running back away from a division rival when the New York Giants didn’t want to pay him that much. The league’s negative trends at the position paid off.

“I thank you all, New York,” Eagles cornerback CJ Gardner-Johnson said. “Shout out to New York. Other than that, Sa(quon) has been a great guy for us.”

Commanders Stunted the Eagles for 3 Quarters Before the Tide Turned

At halftime, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni confronted his team’s reality.

Philadelphia had converted just 3 of 11 third-down attempts. Kicker Jake Elliott had missed field goal attempts from 44 and 51 yards. So his 174 yards of offense totaled only 3 points.

“Really what we talked about at halftime was, ‘Hey, this is going to be a dirty, gritty game,’” Sirianni said. “Keep going. We know we are dirty and gritty. We know that team is dirty and gritty.

“It’s a street fight and it’s not about who’s tougher, it’s about who’s tougher for longer.”

The message was applied to multiple phases of the team. But Barkley was serious about how that could translate into a day when the running game sometimes stagnated.

He thought more intentionally about when he should stand firmer and when he could punch outside. When was the operation one block away from an explosive play and when did it simply need to make a different read downhill? Late in the third quarter and into the fourth, the Eagles began to show that they were tougher for longer.

The Eagles settled for a field goal after Barkley’s 43-yard cut, but Philadelphia’s defense allowed only one first down before forcing a punt. Hurts took off to start the fourth quarter and then, in a change of pace, running back Kenneth Gainwell spelled Barkley and went 14 and then 13 yards. Barkley returned to the game to lead the Eagles down the left end to the 1-yard line, from where Hurts brotherly made his way into the end zone.

Finally, with 12 minutes left in the game, the Eagles got their first touchdown and their first lead, 12-10. But could they keep it?

Philadelphia nearly blew its chance when Dallas Goedert coughed up the ball, but fellow tight end Grant Calcaterra recovered the fumble. Two plays later, Barkley’s blockers opened a huge hole for him. He spun around the right edge for a 23-yard touchdown.

And after safety Reed Blankenship intercepted Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels on the first play of the next drive?

The Eagles turned it over to Barkley twice more, with Barkley cutting and bouncing for a 39-yard touchdown on his 26th carry of the night.

“We were putting up a lot of rushing yards and earning a lot of respect,” Barkley said. “That’s going to be the mentality of the teams coming into the game: make sure you don’t do that. Because when we get the run game going, it’s kind of hard to beat our team.

“We might stop for twenty-something carriers, but we steal two lengths when it matters most. The statistics seem pretty good and you often win.”

Barkley has a chance to reach uncharted territory in Philadelphia

Barkley knows what it’s like to run up your scoring and perhaps your fantasy value, but ultimately not win games.

As a rookie in 2018, he scored 15 touchdowns and led the league with 2,028 yards from scrimmage. The Giants won only five games.

In 2019, Barkley again had 1,441 yards and eight touchdowns, this time in just 13 games. The Giants won four that year.

And in 2022, New York’s only playoff campaign in Barkley’s six years there, his 1,650 yards and 10 touchdowns helped fuel a 9-7 team that upset the Minnesota Vikings in the wild-card round before being eliminated in the divisional round, 38-7, to his now employer in Philadelphia.

Barkley watched them advance to the Super Bowl weeks later and knew then what he knows now: Philadelphia expects a deep postseason run. After seeing two Super Bowl appearances in the last decade, that’s realistic for the Eagles.

All of which is a long way of saying: Excuse Barkley for not overly celebrating the Eagles’ 8-2 record, even if it includes more wins than all but one of his six years in New York.

“We don’t get a trophy in the middle of the season,” Barkley said. “We have to move forward.”

Teammates echoed that expectation.

Hurts talked about how the team will “continue to build, utilize everything we have to the fullest.” Gardner-Johnson said more clearly that the Eagles expect and must earn the division’s guaranteed playoff spot.

“You know who runs this division, no disrespect,” Gardner-Johnson said. “(Washington) is a great team but we know what happens. We know what we have to do.

“It is not an insult or a shot at anyone. We just have to understand. Keep what is rightfully yours. “Keep playing ball.”