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Philadelphia Eagles
And the moment of clarity on that came with 9:21 left in Baltimore on Sunday, with the ball sitting at the 50-yard line and Philly in first-and-10, up 14–12, with a chance to extend the lead.
Barkley over left tackle, 14 yards. Jalen Hurts on a keep over right guard, 11 yards. Barkley back over right tackle, 25 yards, touchdown.
The sequence did more than just provide this interconference showdown with some drama. It stood for what the Eagles have forever stood for—and proved to be just what they were looking for as, over the past couple of months, they sought their identity for 2024.
“You’re getting a full effort from everybody,” coach Nick Sirianni told me, as he drove back from the office, after returning from Baltimore with a 24–19 win. “Saquon’s gonna get talked about a ton and rightfully so, but the tight ends are blocking well. I thought [tight end] C.J. [Uzomah] came through the line of scrimmage, had some really good pulls, and we got some good plays on that. We have receivers running off downfield, getting blocks downfield—there’s really a good one with Parris Campbell and Jahan Dotson doing their part to help Saquon score that touchdown.
“Just a group effort with the entire run game.”
So yes, Barkley’s the story. He hit over 100 yards from scrimmage again on Sunday, which makes that 10 times in 12 weeks he’s gotten there. He’s got a shot at Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record (2,105), and Chris Johnson’s scrimmage yards record (2,509). He’s amazing, and deserves all this after a tumultuous six-year start to his career as a New York Giant.
But the reality is he’s just the engine of a truck that seems to be running the league over on a weekly basis. And just as that truck ran the Baltimore Ravens over for the aforementioned touchdown, it blasted through Baltimore to finish the game on the Eagles’ next possession. Philly ran the ball 10 consecutive times on the Ravens, grinding out two first downs and tearing five minutes off the clock, leaving Lamar Jackson with just 1:03 to work with when he got the ball back down 12. Tyler Steen came in as a sixth lineman in spots. Philly hid nothing.
It was, essentially, .
“You have to fight and claw for everything you get against that team,” Sirianni says. “I mean, they are tough, they’re a tough team, it’s a really good run defense. But yeah, the defense makes a stop, we have the ball, and we’re not quite in range yet, to go up 12. We wanted to score a touchdown, they held us to a field goal. But we took five minutes off the clock.”
And in finishing off the Ravens to score their eighth straight win, the Eagles also brought the vision Sirianni and his staff, including coordinator Kellen Moore, cooked up during the Week 5 bye to full form—it was back then, through a lot reflection and one-on-one talks between Moore and Hurts, that the Eagles made the call to lean on Barkley, the run game and the play-action game off it (A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith were beat up at the time).
Turns out that, even at 2–2, they knew what they were doing.
“The panic from anyone was all on the outside,” Sirianni says. “What an overreaction of the NFL media.”
Sirianni then laughs, “No offense, but what a crazy overreaction. We’re 2–2. And communication’s key to our organization; we make a key of that always. We also make it a key not to listen, when people are telling us how s—y we are or how good we are, we don’t listen, we just do what we need to do to get better, and that’s what that week was for. …
“People get so wrapped up in the scheme, because it’s an easy thing to look at—. At the end of the day, football is about tackling, it’s about getting off blocks, it’s about beating blocks, it’s about blocking, it’s about catching the football, it’s about fundamentals.”
And these are things, now, that Philly’s doing better than just about anyone else.
Don’t believe it? Ask Barkley. It’s all unfolding before his eyes.
