Somehow, Eagles win a game they seemed to have thrown away. Yep, sports can be strange.

NEW ORLEANS — The Eagles make things as easy as reading James Joyce in Braille. They won a game here Sunday at the Superdome, 15-12, over the Saints, that by all rights they had no business winning. They were sloppy. They suffered injury after injury to one important player after another. Their head coach appeared to be making significant decisions by flipping a coin that had an infinite number of sides. Yet here they are, 2-1.

Sports are so strange.

They won because they have Saquon Barkley, who rushed for 147 yards, both of the team’s touchdowns, and a two-point conversion. They won because Vic Fangio’s defense turned in a terrific performance, one that was stunning in its excellence, given that the Saints had scored 91 points over their first two games and that the Eagles defense had burped up a late lead last Monday against the Atlanta Falcons. They won because Jalen Hurts hit Dallas Goedert on a crossing route on third-and-16 and two Saints defenders happened to run into each other, allowing Goedert to rumble 61 yards to set up Barkley’s winning score.

Sports are so strange.

This was looking bad, and it has the chance to get worse fast. The Eagles lost Lane Johnson and DeVonta Smith to concussions, Britain Covey to a shoulder injury, Mekhi Becton and Darius Slay, too. They lost all these key players, and they were on their way to losing any benefit of the doubt that they can once again be the team they were as recently as Week 11 of last season.

For most of Sunday, they couldn’t have been more generous if they were strutting down Bourbon Street, tossing strings of beads to fully clothed passersby. Hurts threw an interception in the end zone on a play on which Smith may or may not have run a poor route. Hurts lost a fumble on the subsequent possession. Braden Mann had a punt blocked. The Eagles committed seven penalties.

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But it was Nick Sirianni who seemed most committed to keeping the Saints within striking distance. Twice, he decided to go for it on fourth down when his offense had already advanced within Jake Elliott’s field-goal range. Twice, the Eagles failed to convert. The particularly egregious first attempt — from the Saints’ 15-yard line, with 10 seconds left in the first half — was enough to make you wonder whether Sirianni had determined before the game that he would go for it on any short-yardage fourth down, either to quell his critics or to satisfy Jeffrey Lurie’s preference for pedal-to-metal strategy. Then, with less than seven minutes left in regulation and the Eagles up 7-6, he had Elliott attempt a 60-yard field goal, which Elliott missed, handing the ball back to the Saints at the 50. And the Saints, sure enough, drove for the go-ahead touchdown.

Then Hurts to Goedert, for a chance. Then Barkley, for the lead with 1 minute, 1 second left. Then a Reed Blankenship interception to seal it. Sports are so strange.