Saquon Barkley's Historic Game Powers Eagles Win

Happy Eagles Victory Monday!

Saquon Barkley had a game for the ages on Sunday Night Football. 255 rushing yards. 302 total yards from scrimmage. A pair of touchdowns.

And the Eagles are 9-2.

We have Flyers and Sixers talk to get to also. But first things first. 🦅

In the email today:

• 💪 Saquon Barkley's Historic Game Powers Eagles Win

• 🇷🇺 Matvei Michkov Buries Matinee OT Winner vs. Blackhawks

• 🧟 Zombie Sixers Unserious in Blowout Loss to Clippers

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

Saquon Barkley. SAQUON BARKLEY.

The numbers: 26 carries, 255 rushing yards (9.8 avg), two rushing touchdowns, four receptions, 47 yards. Mathematically gifted readers will note that Barkley’s numbers add up to 302 total yards from scrimmage.

How does that compare to other individual performances in Eagles history? We are so happy you asked:

Barkley repeatedly bullied the Rams’ defense with powerful runs up the gut. So the Eagles kept handing him the ball. And if you hand Barkley the ball enough, sooner or later you see this:

And if you keep giving him the ball, you just might see this:

I mean…

Oh, and the Eagles’ won their seventh straight game to improve to 9-2 on the season.

They look better every week. Jalen Hurts played turnover-free football once again. A.J. Brown caught six passes for 109 yards and a touchdown. The defense balled out, collecting five sacks and holding the Rams to 0/8 on third down conversions.

Let us tell you this in the tiniest, quietest, little jinx-proof whisper you’ve ever heard: The Philadelphia Eagles have a good shot at winning the Super Bowl.

Check out OnPattison.com for fresh Birds updates all day long.

The Flyers were leaking oil entering Saturday afternoon’s tilt with the Chicago Blackhawks. Two straight losses had put them two games under .500 and had undone some of the progress they had made in the standings.

The schedule did the Flyers a favor bringing the cellar-dwelling Blackhawks to town. A comfortable win over Chicago would steady everything in Flyerland.

Well, it wasn't a comfortable win. It was something way better than that.

This iteration of the Flyers has a very nasty tendency to fall behind early (and sometimes often). That’s a dangerous way to play for a team that scores fewer than three goals per game and has a negative goal difference.

That’s why stuff like this goes up on X:

The Flyers’ struggles to score are at least partially to blame for the fact that this was their fifth overtime game in their last eight outings. Other points of note from this one:

• Sean Couturier and Noah Cates scored in the third period to tie the game.

• Michkov’s OT game-winner was his second overtime winner of the season.

• The game featured a matchup between two highly touted 2023 draft picks: Connor Bedard (Blackhawks, 1st overall) and Michkov, who the Flyers grabbed with the seventh pick in the same draft.

• Aleksei Kolosov made 19 saves on 21 shots for his first career NHL win; he kept the Flyers in the game with a crucial save on a shorthanded breakaway early in the second period.

Let’s not lose focus on that last bit. Michkov’s arrival in Philadelphia was heralded across the Delaware Valley. Kolosov’s debut was anticipated heavily, too, but when he was playing in the AHL it was hard to get too excited about the goaltending prospect.

Will Saturday’s win be the first of many for Kolosov? The Flyers sure hope so.

Koly the Goalie? Um, OK.

If we didn’t know any better, we’d swear the Sixers looked around, saw that the Eagles were playing and said “yeah, no one is paying attention to anything we’re doing tonight."

As it was with Friday’s dead cat bounce win over the Brooklyn Nets on Friday, the Sixers were once again without two of the “Big 3” against the Clippers. And some other guys, too.

It was 32-13 Clippers nearly nine minutes in. Former Sixer James Harden played the first 10+ minutes and scored 12 points before he took a seat. He finished with 23 and was done with two minutes to go in the third quarter.

The Clippers scored 39 points in the first quarter. Meanwhile, Jared McCain and Tyrese Maxey — who combined for 56 points in the win over the Nets — had five points combined in the first quarter against the Clippers. McCain had all five. It was ugly.

The Sixers cut the lead to 12 at the half…and promptly gave up seven unanswered points out of the locker room to end up down 19 again. Unserious. They had a shot clock violation while they were down 18 points. Unserious.

At 85-58 with 6:00 left in the third quarter, there was a compelling argument that the Sixers should have pulled Maxey and McCain and asked the league for permission to play the rest of the game with a running clock.

And that’s effectively what happened. It was 97-62 after three quarters. The bench (and, stupidly, McCain) did about what you’d expect them to do the rest of the way, i.e., they ran around and kept the clock moving toward 0:00 to the best of their ability.

There’s nothing more to say about this Sixers loss. They’re actively terrible and they project to be actively terrible until Embiid and George are healthy.

It’s long past time to wonder whether that will ever happen and whether it will even matter if it does.

And if you’re taking any of this seriously, the joke is definitely on you.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

On November 25, 2007, A.J. Feeley and the Eagles almost beat the Patriots in a 31-28 thriller. Tom Brady led a late touchdown drive for the win, the Pats escaped, and New England would go on to finish the regular season 16-0.

Society today if the Eagles won that game:

📊 Poll

Results from Friday:

🔗 Links

• 🐢 Eric Dixon scored more than half his team’s points in Villanova’s loss to Maryland.

• 🦰Raise your hand if you had “Ed Sheeran crashing the new Manchester United manager’s postgame interview” on your bingo card.

• 🗽Baker Mayfield had absolutely zero chill stunting on Tommy DeVito and the carcass that is the New York Giants.

• 🐧 Sid the Kid scored his 600th goal, and we’re as surprised as you are that it didn’t come against the Flyers.

• 🏈 A weird year for kickers continued as the Commanders missed a potential game-tying extra point and the Texans missed a potential game-tying 28-yard field goal.

📺 Coming Up

Games before our next send.

November 25, 2024

• Vegas Golden Knights vs. Flyers, 7:00 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

Be sure to follow On Pattison on social media:

• Follow on X

• Follow on Instagram

• Follow on Facebook