Eagles Make The Right Choice Resting Barkley And Starters

Nick Sirianni has an impossible choice to make. The game on Sunday means nothing to the Eagles. They are locked into the 2 seed. Usually that would make resting everyone an obvious choice. But Saquon Barkley flirting with NFL history complicated matters. He needs just 101 yards to break Eric Dickerson's 40-year-old rushing record.

He will not get that chance though. On Wednesday Sirianni announced that he will be resting Saquon Barkley and most of the starters, ending any chance Saquon had to make history.

Him falling short is obviously disappointing. But it is also without a doubt the right choice. The health of Barkely, and the other starters, is just too important to take the risk. Last year AJ Brown was knocked out in the final game which meant nothing for the team. He missed the playoff game, and the Eagles were blown out.

This team could be special. They could win it all. Nothing is guaranteed, but they have the talent to win the Super Bowl. Imagine if they sent the starters out there, Lane Johnson gets hurt, and their chances go up in flames. It is just not worth it.

Were it closer, and they could quickly get it in 1 quarter, there might be a case to go for it. But 101 yards might take 4 quarters. Especially with the Giants likely focusing on stopping the run. All the Giants would care about is stopping Barkley. Yes, they are a bad team. But if they put 8 in the box, no amount of good blocking will open up holes for Barkley to run through.

1,245 of Saquons 2005 yards came in the second half. For all we know it would take most of the game for him to get there. If he gets there at all. It is not as simple as just taking him out once get gets it as some people like to pretend. It could take all game, and now the O-Line, Saquon, etc, all have another game full of wear and tear on their body they did not need to take.

Saquon is already well above his career high in carries, and to get where they need to go will likely need to add another 100 or so carries. Why add on more if you don't need to?

The risk of injury is not the only factor. The Eagles have not had a week off since early October. They had the earliest bye week you could possibly have. Recent history shows teams with the early Bye, struggle to win it all.

But here they found a loophole. They can manufacture a bye week just before the playoffs, and go into the playoffs fresher than most of the teams they will have to play.

That is valuable. Sirianni has never lost a game off a bye week, including in the playoffs. He has also won week 1 in every season. It is a small sample size, but also not insignificant. This extra rest for the Eagles starters could be crucial in the Wild Card Matchup.

Both teams they could play, the Packers or Commanders, need to play this weekend. The Eagles do not. You are getting them with a huge rest advantage.

That is too good to pass up. Let the Eagles stars get off their feet and go into the playoffs fresh. Especially the offensive linemen. Lane Johnson is 34. You dont think he will benefit from a week off? All of them are likely battling through some injury, and a week off might be just what they need right now.

Throwing away the chance to set a new record sucks. Especially for Saquon Barkley. But it is the right choice. Everyone being healthy and rested is more valuable. The chance to win the Super Bowl is more important. Kudos to Nick Sirianni for making the tough, but correct, choice.

It took a week longer than expected, but the Eagles have clinched the NFC East. In doing so, they also clinched the 2-seed. They will not have a first-round bye week, and they do not yet know who they will play in the 1st round, but they do know the game will be at home, and that they will be playing at home vs any team other than the 1-seed.

Even without Jalen Hurts, they crushed the Cowboys. They beat them 41-7. They even lost their backup QB and had to go to 3rd string QB Tanner McKee, and yet they still added 17 more points.

Related: Saquon Barkley Hits 2000, And Eagles Clinch The 2-Seed

Both sides got off to a rocky start, as we are used to by now. The defense was letting the Cowboys move the ball with ease on the first drive before CJ Gardner Johnson got a pick 6, but they followed that up by letting the Cowboys easily move down the field again to tie it up. Meanwhile, the offense went 3 and out on their 1st two drives. but like they did in every other game this season, they kicked it into another gear in the 2nd quarter and rattled off 34 unanswered points.

And of course, Saquon Barkley made history, becoming just the 9th player in NFL history to reach 2000 rushing yards. He came up 100 yards short of the All-Time record, and might not get the chance now that the Eagles have nothing to play for next week, but they made sure to send Saquon back out there so he could at least get 2000.

But how did it all go down? How impressive was the win really? Let's break the Eagles win down by the numbers.

As already mentioned, the Eagles defense started off slow. Yes they got the pick 6, but the Cowboys were moving the ball. They averaged 5.5 yards per play on those two drives, gaining 105 total yards on 19 plays. It seemed like the struggles from late in the Commander's game were carrying over to this game. But the defense shut them down from then on.

They gave up just 163 yards the rest of the way on 41 plays. Down from 5.5 yards per play, to 3.9. And down from 52.4 yards per drive to 20.4. 104 of those yards came on two drives, one that ended in a fumble. On the other 6 drives, they averaged 9.8 yards per drive and 2.9 yards per play. The Eagles were back to their usual selves.

Yes it was the Cowboys, and yes they had no CeeDee Lamb. But we have seen this defense do this exact thing to much better offenses. It was just good to see them bounce back from how ugly it looked at the end of last week.

Nolan Smith had a very rocky start to his Eagles career. He barely got on the field during his rookie season, and when he did he was mostly ineffective. Even to start this season, he was not flashing the potential that made him a 1st round pick. But the Eagles patience eventually paid off. Sunday made it 4 straight games with at least 3 pressures. He never got to Cooper Rush, but he led the Eagles with 3 pressures and forced a fumble.

Smith is up to 31 pressures and 6.5 sacks. And in the 5 games since Brandon Graham was injured and Nolan Smith was forced into an increased role Smith has 17 pressures and 3 sacks. We knew they were going to have to rely on him this season. Even more so with all the injuries they had at Edge Rusher. He has answered the call.

Kickoff were a major issue last week. Braden Mann didn't get a single touchback. Which is why they made the switch to Jake Elliott. Now granted, it was much warmer and hence easier to kick the ball out of the End Zone, but 5 of his 7 kickoffs went for a touchback. When the kick was returned, the Eagles did a much better job covering the return. Kavonte Turpin, the best return man in the league, averaged just 24 yards per return.

After giving up favorable field position on nearly every drive against the Commanders, the Eagles were able to win that battle this week. Elliott should continue to handle those duties going forward. Maybe it will help him keep warm too and lead to better results on long FGs.

It was a bit of a struggle with Kenny Pickett last Sunday. The Eagles were not able to run their usual offense, the Commanders showed him no respect, and he could not make them pay. Because of that, Saquon could not get going either, as he faced stacked boxes every time he touched the ball.

So with a week of practice, and a gameplan designed to suit his skillset how did he fare? Much better. After the slow start, Pickett was able to do what he needed to keep the Cowboys' defense honest and let Saquon have some space to run. Even when Tanner Mckee came in, the offense kept humming. In fact between Pickett and McKee, there were only 6 incompletions, compared to 3 TDs. And it is not like they took no chances. Picket was 3 for 3 on passes of over 20 yards. Tanner Mckee was 1 of 2. They had 2 TDs on those deep throws.

They still obviously missed what hurts brings to the table still. But Pickett and McKee were able to keep the ship afloat.

This one is obvious, but it needs to be stated. Saquon Barkley reached 2000 yards on the season. Not only the becoming the 1st Eagle to ever do that, but only the 9th player period. The game was well in hand. The Eagles could have sat their started, and not given Barkley the chance to reach that milestone. But they left their starters in a bit longer, Barkley quickly rattled off the yards he needed, closing it out with a 20+ yard run, and then all the starters came out, and they celebrated.

We knew Saquon was good. I don't know of many people expected him to have one of the greatest RB seasons of all time though. Saquon Barkley, behind this O-Line, with these WRS pulling pressure off him, is a match made in heaven. To stop him, you would have to completely sell out to stop the run like the Commanders did. The Steelers tried that too though, and with a healthy Hurts, they made them pay. You can't leave AJ brown or Devonta Smith in single-man-to-man coverage. But the more people you drop back, the harder it is to stop the Eagles run game. If you leave these O-Linemen in 1-on-1s, they are going to win too.

pretty much what I am saying is that when everyone is healthy, the Eagles offense is impossible to stop for 4 quarters.