Saquon Barkley shouldered the stigma of blame for the Philadelphia Eagles' 22-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons after a late drop that would have secured the win.
"I dropped the ball, let my team down today. Shouldn't have put the defense in that position, make that catch, and the game's 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 remaining in the fourth quarter, Philly called a rollout for Jalen Hurts to hit Barkley in the flat. The play worked well. The running back came wide open with room to earn the first down.
Instead of celebrating another sensational performance as the Eagles moved to 2-0, Barkley and the Eagles were stung. The back flubbed the pass. Then the Philly defense got diced 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 boards and take the lick and move on and get better from it," Barkley said. "I've made that play multiple times. I've missed that play before too, meaning the situation. It happens. It's part of the game. I've just got to be better. I let my team down, I gotta man up to it. I got to own, which I'm doing. Gotta promise those guys in this locker room that I'll be better for them."
The decision to throw on third down instead of running the ball to ensure 40 seconds drained from the clock burned coach Nick Sirianni.
"They were running a certain defense and were junking it up in the middle, so we were trying to go around on the outside, and it didn't work," Sirianni said.
The Eagles had a pre-snap win probability of 98.5% before Barkley's drop, per NFL Research.
"I trust [Barkley] every day of the week to make a play, just like everybody else," Hurts said. "We'll be better from it. It's not a matter of expectations, it's a matter of just executing what's called. And we came up short in that moment."
Barkley rushed for 95 yards on 22 totes and caught four of five passes for 21 yards in his first game playing in Philly in an Eagles jersey. The one drop was killer, but it wasn't the only reason Philadelphia lost.
The defense couldn't get a stop late -- or slow Bijan Robinson earlier. Hurts heaved a forced interception in the final seconds with time left to get into field goal range that harkened back to many late errors from the dismal 2023 ending.
Last year, the season spiraled on Sirianni and the Eagles after things began to go awry. How will they respond to their first real taste of adversity in 2024 with the 2-0 Saints and Buccaneers on tap?
