Winners and losers: 9 takeaways from Eagles win in Week 3

The Philadelphia Eagles heard what everyone was saying about the New Orleans Saints. They heard the Saints had an explosive offense that would get a huge lead and that their defense would strangle you while you chase big plays. The Eagles walked into the Superdome, snuffed out the Saints, and walked away with a 15-12 win. 

There were a lot of good things that happened, a lot of bad things that happened, and a lot of scary things that happened. The offense was disgusting and beautiful while the defense was beautiful and disgusting. The only thing that really matters is that the Eagles are winners and their record is 2-1.

A brutal Eagles win is highlighted by individual and group performances

Everyone played a part in that 60-minute stress fest. There were a lot of players that had to step up and they came in clutch when it was needed.

Winner: Saquon Barkley

Some players do badly in one game and then carry that energy into the next week. Saquon is not that guy. He had a game and possibly season-changing play near the beginning of the fourth quarter when he ran for a 65-yard touchdown. By itself, that’s an incredible play, but the context behind it made it so much more amazing.

DeVonta Smith was knocked out of the game by an egregiously blatant helmet-to-helmet hit (that went uncalled) after the refs forgot they had whistles or thought it was illegal to blow them.

The play after that was the Saquon run. It was a beautiful display of football karma and raw athleticism.

That play was the highlight of Saquon’s day, but he was easily the most dominant player on offense throughout the game. He finished the game with 17 carries for 147 yards and two touchdowns, and four receptions for nine yards. It’s been absolutely unreal seeing what he can do behind an actual offensive line and with Jeff Stoutland as the run game coordinator. 

LeSean McCoy set the Eagles single-season rushing record at 1,607 yards back in 2013. For Saquon to break that, he needs to average 95 yards per game. Through three games, he’s at 351 yards (117 yards per game). What we’re witnessing is something special.

Winner: Dallas Goedert

As spectacular as Saquon’s day was, Dallas Goedert’s day was right there with it. With 1:16 left in the game, Goedert caught a pass four yards past the line of scrimmage, and like the rabid YAC-monster we know he can be, he turned it into a 61-yard reception to give the Eagles a first-and-goal from the four which set up Saquon’s go-ahead touchdown. 

Aside from his 17-yard catch on a third-and-14 in Super Bowl LVII, this was his biggest and most impactful catch of his career, and it came on a career day. He ended the game with 10 catches for 170 yards, and when pass catchers were at a premium, his day couldn’t have come at a better time. 

Revenge Game Winner: Zack Baun

A big story going into this game was that it was a revenge game for C.J. Gardner-Johnson who was drafted by the Saints in 2019. He’s had two other opportunities to play against them since then but wasn’t able to because of injuries.

It was also a low-key revenge game for Zack Baun who was drafted by the Saints in 2020. When he was in New Orleans, he played almost exclusively on special teams. In his four years there, he only started 14 games and never played more than 27 percent of the defensive snaps in any season. Now he’s an Eagle and he’s been dominating on defense. 

He came alive in Week 1 with 11 solo tackles and two sacks. Week 2 was kind of a dud because he kept getting cut-blocked, but he had never experienced those before so it was more or less understandable. He was right back at it against the Saints. 

He ended the game with nine tackles and it felt like every single one of them was either at or within a couple yards of the line of scrimmage. He was able to make sure Alvin Kamara didn’t get the chunk runs that he’s been able to rip off in Weeks 1 and 2. His dominance and ability to wreck the Saints’ game plan was huge in a bounce-back game for the Eagles and their defense. 

Winner: The defense as a whole

Through two weeks, the Saints' offense was doing something spectacular. They had put up 91 points and had been playing with a three-score lead for the majority of the time they were on the field. 

That ended when they came face-to-face with the Eagles’ astonishingly stalwart defensive line. The Saints had been at or near the top of the charts for scoring, explosive plays, success rate, EPA per play, and really just every important offensive metric. Then, on an early third-and-15, Derek Carr dropped back and Jalen Carter batted the pass back into Carr’s face with a metaphorical (and possibly literal), ‘Nah, not today. I’m actually just gonna live right here for the next 60 minutes.’

The Eagles' defense held the Saints to just three points through three and a half quarters. Throughout the whole game, New Orleans only had 219 total yards, 14 completions, and 3.1 yards per rush; they were shut down.

Then after the Eagles scored the go-ahead touchdown, the Saints had the ball with a minute left and everyone thought the game was going to end the same way it did in Week 2 with just another easy 70-yard drive. Fortunately, there’s a ghost in the Eagles secondary.

‘Ed’ Reed Blankenship, Chalk Dawk, whatever you want to call him… Blankenship came up with yet another gutting interception, which was largely due to pressure from Brandon Graham and Josh Sweat.

The whole defense showed up. Jalen Carter got back on track with two batted passes and two tackles for a loss while being just an otherworldly menace. Jordan Davis got a sack. Milton Williams was destructive. Everyone did great… except for Bryce Huff because he’s done nothing of value through three games. 

Impromptu Winner: The offensive line

The Eagles took a lot of blows, injury-wise. Early in the game right guard Mekhi Becton left the game with some sort of hand injury. Not long after that, right tackle Lane Johnson left the game with a concussion. This meant the Eagles had to use Tyler Steen at right guard and Fred Johnson at right tackle. 

Anytime Lane Johnson goes out, it’s typically a game-wrecking. But when you have to replace both of the guys on the right side during the game? Sheesh, that’s a death sentence. That was not the case this week… not even a little bit.

Early on, the Saints lost their center which made them switch up their offensive line, and they struggled in a big-time way. That just emphasized how much Steen and Fred absolutely crushed it. It'd be dumb to say that there was no change in how the offense ran because Lane Johnson is the best in the world at his job, but those two guys looked really really good when they were thrown into a bad spot, and then the offense went on to run the ball for 172 yards. 

How has Jeff Stoutland never won some kind of AP Assistant Coach of the Year award? The guy is a mastermind.

Kinda-Loser: Jalen Hurts

Jalen had a good game. He was 29-of-38 for 311 yards which is one of the bigger games by a quarterback this season, so it sucks that he has to get put in the ‘loser’ category here, but there’s no way around it. The turnovers are railroading the offense.

His interception didn’t look terrible other than that it happened in the end zone. It looked like it might’ve been an awesome play by Tyrann Mathieu or maybe DeVonta could’ve run a better route. So that one is just tough.

The fumble though … That was atrocious. How can he be this bad at ball security? He was running with the ball just floating in his hand. It looked like he was holding onto the ball the same way you hold onto a bag of dog poop that you want to drop when no one is looking. 

That was Jalen’s 23 fumble of his career. It’s got to change, but if it hasn’t changed yet, it feels like it might not. It really marred what would otherwise have been an all-around dominant game by QB1.

King of the Losers: Nick Sirianni

No one in the world needed this win more than Nick Sirianni. After he botched the offense’s second-to-last drive in Week 2, he really doubled down on the bad decisions before halftime.

It was fourth-and-one from the Saints’ 15-yard line, there were 14 seconds left, and the Eagles had one timeout. Nick decided to do a variation of the Brotherly Shove where Saquon takes the ball to the left. It didn’t work and he was tackled for a turnover on downs.

If that play worked, the Eagles would’ve had a first down, used their timeout, and had the ball on the 13-ish with eight or nine seconds left. Maybe they would’ve been able to take a single shot at the end zone, but a lot of things would have to go right for that to work. 

Nick decided against a field goal (which he had done earlier in the game with another terrible decision) and the Eagles went into the half with no points. Yes, they won the game 15-12, but putting six points on the board early on would have made everyone’s lives a whole lot easier.

Also, a punt that gets blocked because a defender goes untouched is on the coach. Sirianni is a CEO head coach, which means he isn’t spending 100 percent of his mental bandwidth on the offense (you could argue he’s not using 100 percent of it in general) so the blocked punt was partly on Nick.

During the Fox halftime show, Michael Strahan called Nick Sirianni, “Nick Sorry-anni.” Maybe that was a slip of the tongue, but given all of his terrible decisions it probably wasn’t.

Future Loser: The Eagles wide receiver room

The Eagles are in a bad spot here. Five players were hurt or injured during this game: Mekhi Becton, Lane Johnson, Darius Slay, Britain Covey, and DeVonta Smith. At the end of the game, the Eagles pass catchers were Dallas Goedert, Jahan Dotson, Parris Campbell, and Johnny Wilson. That’s pretty much the worst-case scenario. 

If the Eagles are smart, they keep A.J. Brown out until Week 6 (after their bye) just to make sure his hamstring is completely healthy. DeVonta got a concussion today and the recovery time for concussions is anything but predictable. It looked like DeVonta got straight-up knocked out on the play, so who knows how long he’ll be out for? It’d probably also be a good idea to keep him out until after the bye. 

Britain Covey’s not a crazy playmaker on offense or anything like that, but he’s got hands and he knows the offense. He left the game with a shoulder injury that put him in a sling. 

The point is, the Eagles are probably going to be short on pass catchers in Week 4. Luckily the running game looks as good as it ever has, but next week there are going to be some guys catching balls who we would rather not have catching those balls. 

Ultra-Loser: The bad guys

The Eagles won in the early slate which meant we got to watch the late slate in peace, and what a late slate it was. The Cowboys got whomped by the Ravens for a solid 45 minutes before they tried to mount a comeback. They were close and the game ended with the Ravens winning 28-25, but that just means that Cowboys fans got their hearts ripped out. You love to see it. 

At the same time, the incredibly injured Rams beat the incredibly injured 49ers. That drops the 49ers to a 1-2 record, which means their Super Bowl hangover is *checks watch* perfectly on schedule. It was a great weekend to be a hater and an even better weekend to be an Eagles fan.