Eagles-Saints analysis: Saquon Barkley, Dallas Goedert, and the defense save the day in a wild 15-12 win

NEW ORLEANS — It’s a win that will reverberate. It would’ve been a loss that reverberated.

The Eagles again lost the turnover battle. They lost four offensive starters to injuries, and another on defense. But Saquon Barkley’s 65-yard burst finally put the Eagles on the board less than two minutes into the fourth quarter, and he crossed the goal line again with 1 minute, 1 second left on the clock to put the Eagles back in front after they’d surrendered their lead late.

Here’s our instant analysis from the Eagles’ improbable 15-12 win against the New Orleans Saints at Caesars Superdome.

New Orleans took a 12-7 lead with 2:03 to go when Chris Olave tapped both feet down in the left side of the end zone on a 13-yard pass. The lead the Eagles had worked so hard to get was gone, and they were staring at a 1-2 start.

But with five normal starters on offense missing, the Eagles marched down the field and won. A 61-yard connection from Jalen Hurts to Dallas Goedert, who finished the day with 10 catches for a career-high 170 yards, provided the spark. Goedert ran a crossing route on third-and-16 from the right side of the formation to the left and was freed up when two Saints defenders collided on a perfectly-executed pick from Jahan Dotson. The Eagles scored on the next play with Barkley, who rushed for 147 rushing yards, diving in from 4 yards out and then adding a two-point conversion run.

The Eagles were backed up on third down after Hurts was sacked for the fourth time behind a banged-up offensive line. Goedert said the Eagles originally were lined up for a play expecting zone. Hurts alerted that the Saints were in man coverage and changed the play. “It worked out great,” Goedert said.

“When I caught the ball, I looked, and said, ‘Where is everybody?’” he said. “I just ran as fast as I could, as long as I could, and thankful that we got Saquon that was able to get in the end zone twice there.”

The Eagles, on their winning drive, went 69 yards in five plays in 1 minute, 2 seconds.

“In games like that, when it’s gritty and you have to overcome things that are in front of you, you lean on the preparation,” Hurts said.

The Eagles were already down star receiver A.J. Brown, who missed his second straight contest with a hamstring injury. But one by one Sunday, their injury list grew. They were forced to replace the right side of their offensive line when right guard Mekhi Becton left with a finger injury and All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson suffered a concussion.

An already thin wide receiving corps took a hit when Britain Covey was knocked out of the game with a shoulder injury, and then DeVonta Smith, in a scary scene that had multiple players kneeling around him, left the game with a concussion. Smith’s injury came near the end of a play when his forward progress appeared to have been stopped. But Saints defensive tackle Khristian Boyd hit Smith up high, knocking his helmet off. Barkley said he thought it was a late hit.

On the next play, he broke off a 65-yard touchdown run.

“When you see that, anybody, it [stinks] and it hurts, but especially Smitty, the way he comes and works, the way he prepares and how much he means to this team,” Barkley said. “It was a tough loss. It was tough to see him down like that in that moment.

“Right after that we locked in and we said, ‘Come on, trust each other and let’s get this done for Smitty.’ Sometimes it just works like that, popped off a big one right after.”

Later, inside six minutes to play, cornerback Darius Slay needed to be helped off the field.

Nick Sirianni staunchly defended his fourth-down decision making last week, and six days after those choices put a spotlight on the coach’s role as CEO and game manager, fate followed him south.

Near the end of the first half, with the Eagles trailing 3-0, Sirianni called timeout to set up a fourth-and-1 on the Saints’ 15-yard line and 14 seconds on the clock. A half from hell could have ended with a 3-3 score, but the Eagles instead went for it, and with two backups playing on the right side of their line, they did not Tush Push and instead handed it off to Barkley, who was stuffed at the line.

According to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats model, the Eagles would have increased their win percentage by 8.1% by kicking instead of going for it.

Sirianni said he called the play himself and not offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, who typically calls plays.

“That’s not on Kellen,” Sirianni said. “That’s not on the players. I put them in a bad spot.”

Out of halftime, the Eagles faced a fourth-and-3 on New Orleans’ 34-yard line. Sirianni again opted to go for it, and Hurts was sacked. The Eagles could have led 6-3, but instead still trailed 3-0. Later, Sirianni opted to let kicker Jake Elliott attempt a 60-yard field goal with the Eagles leading, 7-6. The kick failed, and the Saints had the ball to start their go-ahead drive at midfield with 6:41 left.

In a game in which the Eagles outgained New Orleans, 460 yards to 219, the decisions were magnified.

Sirianni said after the Eagles won their opener in Brazil that it wasn’t sustainable to lose the turnover battle and win football games.

The Saints didn’t give the Eagles the ball until Derek Carr threw a desperation interception in the final minute. But Hurts threw an interception in the end zone and later failed to protect the football when being flushed to his left side. Hurts held the ball low and Carl Granderson sacked him, forcing the ball free for what was the sixth Eagles turnover in 10 quarters. Hurts later called the fumble “unacceptable.”

The turnovers overshadowed what was an otherwise strong performance from Hurts, who was missing Brown and later finished the game with only three healthy receivers. Hurts completed 29 of 38 pass attempts for 311 yards, adding another 29 on five rushes before the game-ending kneeldowns.

“He’s the most poised human being I’ve ever been around in my life,” Barkley said of Hurts. “He doesn’t get flustered. Never too high, never too low. ... He’s the leader of this team. Obviously those turnovers are not what you want to happen. But that happens, it’s part of the game, and it’s all about how you respond.”

Hurts, of course, responded with a late game-winning drive.

“It’s nice when you’re able to win and get out of it, but we got to take care of the ball better, there’s no doubt,” Sirianni said. “But, shoot, he played his butt off today. Jalen Hurts is a winner. He wins.”

The Saints entered Sunday as the hottest offense in the NFL, averaging 45.5 points in two game. The Eagles defense under new coordinator Vic Fangio was being called into question.

But when the Eagles needed it most, the defense delivered.

The Eagles held Carr to just 142 yards through the air and sacked him once while more consistently than usual applying pressure. They held Alvin Kamara to 3.3 yards per carry and New Orleans to 3.1 on the day after allowing a league-worst 6.4 yards per attempt through two games.

“We want to be able to stop the run,” said Eagles safety C.J Gardner-Johnson, who played his first three NFL seasons with the Saints. “We want to be able to stop a lot of things. But today felt good. All we heard about was they running, high-powered, high-scoring. Ain’t nothing.”

And when Hurts and the offense put the defense back on the field after taking the late lead, it put the game away, Reed Blankenship’s interception sealing a win that will resound.

“This is a hard place to play,” Sirianni said. “This is a hard place to win. ... We’ll remember this. That brings a team closer together.”