Nick Sirianni made two decisions that hurt his team in Monday night's 21-22 loss to the Falcons, and the blame rests solely on Saquon Barkley.
The Eagles coach called for a pass to Barkley on third down and 3-yards with 1 minute, 46 seconds left in Monday's game against the Falcons, but Barkley, the team's prized addition, dropped it.
Atlanta doesn't have timeouts, so a short third down is the obvious choice, which will bring the clock down to just one minute.
“They played a certain defense and they messed it up in the middle,” Sirianni told reporters after the game, “so we tried to go around the outside and it didn't work.”
The play call would have been successful even if Barkley, who lacks confidence in his handling, had dropped the ball.
If Barkley had caught the ball, he would likely have gotten a first down and the game would have effectively been over.
From there, Sirianni opted to kick a field goal rather than go after the game-winning shot.
“Like I said again, the decision to pass when they were junking the ball inside, fourth down and three yards on offense, they hadn't taken a timeout and wanted us to see if we could drive down the field for a touchdown loss. And they did, so hats off to them,” Sirianni said.
ESPN's Seth Walder added that another questionable decision by Sirianni was not attempting a pass on fourth down, noting that analytics shows that attempting a pass instead of kicking increases the team's chances of winning by 5 percent.
“It was a big, unexpected error on fourth-and-3.” Walder posted on X The chart shows that the Eagles have a 90.2 percent chance of winning the game if they make a field goal, compared with 95 percent if they make an attempt. “Either way, if they score a touchdown, they lose. And opposing teams are irrationally conservative when they're down by three points. They're going to go out there now trying to win.”
Trailing by six points, Sirianni's defense was broken by Kirk Cousins, who eased the Falcons forward in six plays and scored the game-winning run.
What's even more painful for Sirianni is that Barkley was never a sure receiver during his time with the Giants.
The star running back has recorded 16 drops since the 2021 season, the most at his position in the NFL.
“I let the team down today.” Berkeley said After the game, reporters knew the game was over with a first down.
Philadelphia will need a short memory this week as it travels to the Big Easy to take on the 2-0 New Orleans Saints in just five days.
