Top 7 Eagles Plays From Sunday's Win

The Eagles tried their best to lose Sunday’s game against the Jaguars. Nick Sirianni made some truly head-scratching decisions and the refs didn’t do the Birds any favors.

But in the end, talent won out. We’ll show you seven plays that proved it.

The W from your professional football club capped off a messy weekend in Philly sports. Among other events, Penn State blew a golden opportunity against Ohio State and Joel Embiid (allegedly) shoved a journalist.

Let’s discuss.

In the email today:

• 👀 Top 7 Eagles Plays From Sunday's Win

• ⬇️ James Franklin Has Another Nightmare in a Big Game

• 🤮 Joel Embiid Picked a Bad Time to Take a Stand

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

Seven plays tell the story of Sunday’s stressful Birds victory over the Jaguars.

7) Saquon Barkley 1st-quarter TD catch

Barkley reeled in a 20-yard pass from Jalen Hurts to give the Birds an early lead.

First-quarter points! What a concept.

6) Sydney Brown blows up punt return, Kelee Ringo recovers the fumble

A fantastic special teams play set up Barkley’s touchdown catch.

5) Saquon Barkley 19-yard TD run on 3rd & 17

Barkley gave the Eagles a 16-0 lead with this run and it looked like the Birds might put this one away early. (Spoiler alert: they did not.)

4) Ridiculous catch by Jahan Dotson

DaVonta Smith and AJ Brown are incredible, but the Eagles have been searching for production from a third wide receiver. Maybe this Jahan Dotson catch gets him going.

3) DeVonta Smith TD catch

After the Birds' lead dwindled to six points, DeVonta Smith showed off some of the best hands in the NFL. On 3rd & 22.

2) Saquon Barkley reverse hurdle

You can make a strong argument to put this run at # 1. Have you ever in your life seen a running back slip from a spin move into a reverse hurdle over a defender? Barkley even stuck the landing.

1) Nakobe Dean game-sealing interception

But as incredible as the other six plays were, none of them would mean anything if the Birds didn't come up with one last stop. God bless Nakobe Dean:

You could barely conceive of things setting up better for Penn State this past Saturday to exorcise its big game demons.

ESPN’s College GameDay AND Big Noon Kickoff both brought their pregame shows to Happy Valley on a pristine Saturday morning in advance of the #3 Nittany Lions hosting #4 Ohio State.

The Lions weren’t favored, but there was at least some national buzz for the home team:

Penn State couldn’t lose (and not cover!) in this spot, could they? Surely this was the moment for James Franklin to rip the monkey off his back, right?

Well…no.

The 20-13 final score actually flattered Penn State. The Buckeyes had six more first downs, nearly 100 more total yards, and gave up only two field goals to Penn State’s offense. Ohio State also lost a fumble on their way into the Penn State end zone.

We’ll never know whether Penn State quarterback Drew Allar was limited by his injury suffered in last week’s win over Wisconsin. We only know that 12/20 for 146 yards and a pick in this spot at home ain’t it.

Penn State’s fan base took the loss in stride, as usual.

Franklin’s comments in the postgame press conference were by-the-book benign, but it’s stuff like engaging with the fans while leaving the field that tells you who Franklin really is:

The optics with Franklin often suck. That’s problematic.

But there is no bigger problem for Franklin, none, than this one:

For this, Penn State is paying Franklin well north of $7 million a year.

All is probably not lost this season. With the expanded NCAA playoff, Penn State still has a reasonably clear path to a berth though now they might not get a bye.

But we can’t summarize the state of the Penn State season — and of the program — much better than this:

Yup.

On Friday, as the Zombie Sixers prepared to face the Memphis Grizzlies at home, we heard thunder rumbling from Joel Embiid:

Saturday night, not only did the thunder roll…the lightning struck:

It appeared that Pompey tried to pull the “He punched him” reply, but anyone who’s ever been online knows that screenshots are undefeated.

Shams Charania came to Pompey’s rescue. And Embiid’s.

This entire incident apparently stems from a column that Marcus Hayes wrote over a week ago. Not for the first time, people are saying that Hayes’ column was garbage.

But Embiid’s Friday remarks stressed the injuries he has sustained and the risks he has taken with his body coming back from those injuries. He knows he gets paid to play, right? He gets paid a lot! That’s what the f*cking money is for!

The same money is also for handling personal attacks from disrespectful media members with dignity or, at the absolute minimum, quiet distance.

Of all the times for Embiid to make himself the story, this period of extended injury absence at the start of a season that had a lot of promise was exactly the wrong one.

Give Embiid this: If he’s truly serious about getting his body healed, he might have even more time to do it if the NBA suspends him.

Then again, “does suspending an injured player make any difference” is the “if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound” comp of the day.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

On this day in 2004, the Phillies introduced the man who would lead them to the promised land:

📊 Poll

Results from Friday:

🔗 Links

• 🏀 Paul George’s Sixers debut might happen tonight.

• 🏈 Jason Kelce had a sad case of the shanks on College GameDay.

• 📱Jason Kelce’s weekend in Happy Valley wasn’t improved by (justifiably, in our opinion) smashing a heckler’s phone.

• 🥅 The Flyers lost the game and their goaltender to injury on Saturday.

• 🤠 The Cowboys might be limping into next week’s game with the Eagles.

📺 Coming Up

Games before our next send.

Monday, October 4

• Sixers at Suns | 10:15 p.m. | NBA TV, NBC Sports Philadelphia

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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