PHILADELPHIA — Saquon Barkley didn’t sugarcoat the dropped pass on third down that would have sealed the Philadelphia Eagles victory over the Atlanta Falcons. The drop will be replayed in Barkley’s mind for a long time, yet it’s one the star running back knows he has to make.
“Let my team down,” Barkley said. “I shouldn’t have put them in that position. I need to make that catch.”
The Eagles faced a third-and-3 at the Falcons’ 10-yard line with 1:46 left. With Atlanta having no time outs, Jalen Hurts rolled right and saw a wide-open Barkley in the flat. Barkley catches the pass, gets a first down, and the Eagles run out the clock to get to 2-0.
Instead, Barkley just dropped the easy completion. Jake Elliott kicked a field goal to put the Eagles up six points with 1:42 to play, but the damage was done. That Barkley drop gave the Falcons all the momentum they needed to pull off the near-impossible comeback, as they went down the field in six plays and 1:01 to tie the game on a Kirk Cousins touchdown pass to Drake London with 38 seconds left. Younghoe Koo capped the comeback with an extra point to give the Falcons a 22-21 lead.
The comeback doesn’t start if Barkley catches that third-down pass.
“I made a mistake on that play,” Barkley said. “It definitely sucks. Any loss sucks.”
Barkley’s drop offset another productive night for the Eagles running back, as he finished with 22 carries for 95 yards (4.3 yards per carry) and four catches for 21 yards on five targets. The drop offset the entire night for Barkley and the Eagles.
“For me it’s part of the process,” Barkley said. “Obviously you don’t want it to happen, but you gotta grow from it. I just gotta go back to the drawing board and be consistent in my work. Go back to the details and make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
After the Eagles’ stunning collapse, Barkley was talking to Hurts before he faced the media. The Eagles quarterback offered him words of encouragement as he met with Barkley at his locker.
“He said he’s gonna trust me every time in that situation,” Barkley said. “We’ll be all right. We’ll figure it out and get better.”
A miscue like the one Barkley had could affect a player’s performance for the remainder of the season, but he doesn’t plan on letting it define him.
“I could complain and be upset about it, or I could be a professional athlete and go back to the drawing board,” Barkley said. “Take the lick and get better from it. I made that play multiple times. I missed that play before, too.
“It’s part of the game. I just gotta be better. I let my team down. I gotta man up to it. I gotta own it, which I’m doing. I promised those guys in the locker room that I’ll be better from it.”
Barkley is making sure a miscue of that magnitude doesn’t happen again.
