Nick Sirianni addresses his game-losing decision to pass the ball to Saquon Barkley
The Philadelphia Eagles are 1-1 after losing 22-21 to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football at the Linc in Week 2. The Eagles held a lead late in the fourth quarter, but head coach Nick Sirianni's decision to throw the ball and Saquon Barkley's dropped pass would quickly change that. Jalen Hurts and the […]
The Philadelphia Eagles are 1-1 after losing 22-21 to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football at the Linc in Week 2.
The Eagles held a lead late in the fourth quarter, but head coach Nick Sirianni's decision to throw the ball and Saquon Barkley's dropped pass would quickly change that.
Jalen Hurts and the Birds had the ball at Atlanta's 10-yard line on third down with less than two minutes remaining in the game. The Falcons had zero timeouts left.
Rather than running the ball, Hurts faked a handoff before throwing it to Barkley, who dropped it and the clock stopped. The Eagles elected to kick a field goal, which made the score 21-15.
The 1:39 seconds left on the clock were more than what Kirk Cousins and the Falcons needed to come back and win. Cousins ultimately found wide receiver Drake London in the endzone with 34 seconds remaining. Younghoe Koo's kick was good.
Hurts' final drive was then picked off by Falcons safety Jessie Bates to end the game.
After the game, Sirianni explained his game-losing decision to pass it to Barkley instead of running it.
“They were running a certain defense and junking it up in the middle, so we were trying to go on around the outside, and it didn’t work,” Sirianni said.
Sirianni added that he considered the Falcons not having any timeouts before making the call.
"In that scenario, I was thinking they might not have any timeouts there, but obviously they did with the incomplete pass. That would have come down to maybe a minute, and so we wanted to go up six points and it didn't work," Sirianni added. "The decision to pass it there, like I said when they were junking it up inside with it being fourth and three to go for it, I thought with them not having any timeouts I wanted them to be down a touchdown and see if they could drive the field and they did. Hats off to them."
Had Barkley not dropped the pass, it would have been a completely different ball game.
But, regardless of a dropped ball or not, it was still a terrible play call.
