Saquon Barkley sends Eagles to NFC Championship Game – NBC Sports Philadelphia

Saquon Barkley is the greatest football player ever.

That’s it.

Ball game.

See you on Sunday.

1. I’ll get to Saquon in a moment, but this win is such a character win and really shows what this team is all about. So much went wrong. Missed opportunities. Blown chances. Dropped passes. Stupid penalties. Forgotten PATs. Bad decisions. Just one thing after another. You name it. But the one thing this team kept doing was fighting and fighting, and the lethal combination of big plays from Saquon Barkley and ferocious defense added up to a 28-22 victory over the Rams in their conference semifinal playoff- match and a meeting with Commanders at Linc Sunday in the NFC Championship Game. Whew. You have to love a team that can overcome adversity like this, especially in must-win games in the playoffs. At this point you take W. But let’s be honest. This team is capable of so much more, of playing so much better. Still, they found a way. They keep finding a way. That’s what makes good teams.

2. Saquon Barkley. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a single player who has meant as much to the Eagles as No. 26 have this year. Maybe Randall Cunningham in 1990. Without him, this is a good team. With him, they are one more home win away from the Super Bowl. He does things that simply defy belief. In addition to 255 yards in the first Rams game, Saquon ran 26 times for a franchise postseason record 205 yards and touchdowns on 62 yards in the first quarter and 70 yards in the second quarter. He is simply unstoppable. In the middle quarters, it was hard sledding for the running game, and it got worse as conditions worsened. But I love that even when that run game dries up, Kellen Moore keeps dialing it up because he knows he’s going to hit a big one eventually. We’ve seen coaches around here who haven’t. Where would this team be without him? Definitely not playing Commanders next week.

3. It’s easy to say that the Eagles don’t really need a powerful passing game because of their running game and defense. But once again the passing game just wasn’t good enough. It’s great that Jalen Hurts isn’t turning the ball over, but he just hasn’t looked comfortable since coming back from his concussion. He doesn’t throw with confidence, he stays in the pocket way too long, he takes way too many sacks, and he just doesn’t look right. Let’s dig deeper: Hurts had 11 completions of at least 35 yards in his first 10 games this year and none in his last seven games. He dropped back 27 times and was sacked seven times, which is ridiculous. He was sacked more than a quarter of the time he regressed. Including a ridiculous sack. Now, AJ Brown dropped what would have been a 35-yarder down to the 2-yard line just before halftime Sunday. And clearly by the middle of the second half, conditions had deteriorated to the point where no one would throw downfield, and Hurts looked hampered at that point as well. But the bottom line is that this offense has too many talented people across the board for the passing offense to be that punchless against a bottom-10 defense. They have to be better. Evil must be better.

4. Nolan Smith is a flat beast, and with Brandon Graham out for the year, Josh Sweat with just one sack in his last seven games and Bryce Huff a complete failure thus far, the Eagles desperately need his production. And Smith just keeps coming up big. He had two sacks last week against Jordan Love and a big one in the fourth quarter Sunday that forced a Matt Stafford fumble inside the Rams’ 40-yard line that Zack Baun recovered and the Eagles got a big field goal out of it . Smith has to be one of the most improved defensive players in the league, going from a non-factor last year to a ferocious playmaker on the best defense in the league. He plays like crazy every time. In two playoff games, he has three sacks, three tackles for loss, two hurries, a forced fumble and two quarterback hits. He’s playing at such a high level right now and it’s fun to watch.

5. Things got a little sketchy in the final few minutes as the Rams drove 70 yards for a touchdown with 2:48 left and then 60 more yards down to the 13 in the final seconds. They had 135 of their 402 yards in the final 4½ minutes. But really, I’ll take this defense over any other defense. I just love the way they play, the physicality, the intensity, the consistency and that stretch when they forced fumbles on back-to-back drives in the fourth quarter — the first forced by Jalen Carter, recovered and returned 40 yards by Isaiah Rodgers , the second forced by Nolan Smith and recovered by Zack Baun — was the key stretch in this game. Those takeaways only led to field goals, but it was a stretch where the defense really started to get to Matt Stafford and the Eagles took command. It wasn’t perfect and there were some scary moments, but this defense — along with Barkley — is carrying this team right now, and they’re going to keep the Eagles in every game no matter what else happens. Final tally from Sunday: The Eagles tied the franchise postseason record five sacks with 10 tackles for loss, six quarterback hits, 10 pass knockdowns and two takeaways. It was the 14th time in the past 15 games that the defense has held an opponent to 20 or fewer points. Think back to how this defense played last year. Then see this group. The transformation is amazing.

6. It’s fun to think back that one knock on Jalen Carter when the Eagles drafted him was that he didn’t play very many snaps at Georgia because they were so deep up front. People questioned his fitness level and his ability to be effective late in the game in the NFL. Now we are here. Carter is an absolute monster and he never leaves the court and he is just as effective at the end of the game as he is at the beginning. He’s unstoppable when he’s singles and sometimes when he’s doubles and you just can’t block him. Carter is an unstoppable force, and all Carter did Sunday was pick up two sacks, five tackles, two tackles for loss, three quarterback hits, a pass knockdown and a forced fumble. He has come so far in taking care of himself and working on his fitness to be able to play at an extreme level for 60 minutes. He’s a kid that was blessed with a tremendous amount of talent, but he’s done everything he needs to do to make the most of that talent, and I watched every game Jerome Brown played, and he’s a Eagles legend, I’d say Jalen Carter is as talented as JB And that’s astronomical praise.

7. Two catches for 14 yards with a long gainer of nine yards on top of a catch last week for 10 yards. That’s 3-for-24 in two playoff games for AJ Brown, and if you told me before the playoffs that Brown would have 24 receiving yards against the Packers and Rams and that the Eagles would still be playing, I wouldn’t have believed it. The crazy thing is, Brown has now played five postseason games in an Eagles uniform and has only had 30 yards once – in the Super Bowl. Now there was that deep ball that he should have caught, but I’ll keep saying this: If the Eagles are going to win the next few games, AJ Brown needs to be a factor in this offense. He’s too good not to be. When looking at the best wide receivers in the NFL, I go with Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase as the No. 1 and 2 and AJ third. He is such an elite playmaker and such a weapon with the ball in his hands. Fast, physical, tough. Too good to be 3-for-24.

8. The Eagles are certainly lucky with Dallas Goedert, who was 4-for-47 against the Packers and 4-for-56 against the Rams and is the Eagles’ leading receiver in the postseason. He has eight targets and eight catches. He’s just money. You’d love to get DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown going, but Goedert is Hurts’ safety valve, and as much as the Eagles missed him when he sat out nine games this year, his return has been a lifesaver for a passing game that haven’t had much going on lately.

9. You’re not going to find a mid-January kicker better than Jake Elliott, but this is getting a little crazy. He’s now missed PATs in consecutive playoff games on top of his 1-for-7 from 50 yards in the regular season, and I don’t care what Nick Sirianni says, there’s no way his confidence until Elliott has not fallen over the past few months. Elliott has missed eight kicks in the Eagles’ last 10 games, which is crazy. But … he also made all three of his field goals, including a pretty high-leverage 44-yarder in poor conditions late in the third quarter that gave the Eagles the lead for good. Elliott is now 22-for-22 in his postseason career on field goal attempts, and one thing you can say about Elliott is that he doesn’t let misses bother him. He has that ability to forget the misses and go out and make the next one. But, good grief, he must be better.

10. Exciting matchup Sunday against a Commanders team playing with a tremendous amount of confidence and a rookie quarterback playing at an astounding level. The Commanders have won seven straight after a 7-5 start, and what they did against the Lions at Ford Field is sure to get your attention. The Eagles saw firsthand what Jayden Daniels is capable of when he threw for five touchdowns — three in the fourth quarter — as the Commanders came back from 13 points down to beat the Eagles 36-33. The Eagles need more out of their passing game to beat a Washington team averaging nearly 32 points per game since late November, they need the secondary to get big stops and force some turnovers, and they need the pass rush to get to Daniels and force some. error. But these are all things that are possible. It’s going to take a huge effort from any team to come into the Linc and beat the Eagles.