The Eagles did enough to beat the Vikings, but they know they still need to be better

Jalen Hurts was excellent, so were A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. But Saquon Barkley and the run game still aren't going, and the Eagles' pass rush won't have the benefit of facing Carson Wentz every week.

By Nick Tricome
PhillyVoice Staff

Brad Rempel/Imagn Images

Saquon Barkley's longest run on Sunday went for nine yards. He's still looking for that big play.

Saquon Barkley didn't want to sound like a broken record. 

Lane Johnson declined to speak postgame because he felt there was nothing he could say to the media that would help the team, per The Philadelphia Inquirer's Jeff McLane.

And Nick Sirianni, he took the win. The head coach is always going to hang his hat on that result, however it's achieved, but even he acknowledged that there are problems still to work on.

But what the Eagles put together Sunday in Minnesota, for now, was enough – albeit dicey.

They beat the Vikings, 28-22. They rebounded from consecutive, ugly losses and improved to 5-2 to keep a clear hold over the lead in the NFC East.

Jalen Hurts threw for 326 yards, three touchdowns, and the third-ever perfect passer rating in Eagles history; A.J. Brown caught two touchdowns and racked up 121 yards, and DeVonta Smith grabbed a score along with a career-high 183 yards; all while the defense came up with two turnovers and generally punished old friend Carson Wentz in the pocket.

And yet, Wentz kept marching the Vikings deep into Eagles territory again and again because Quinyon Mitchell can't blanket Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison at the same time; outside of the big home-run plays, the Eagles' offense continued to have trouble avoiding stalling out; and Saquon Barkley still can't get anything going to re-establish what used to be the Eagles' outright dominant run game, which an increasingly banged up O-line really doesn't help with either. 

The Eagles won, yeah, but they easily could've buried the Vikings at various points. Yet they didn't. They let them hang around. They let the game come down to a 3rd and long gamble of a toss up for Brown, and then some extra out-of-the-box clock management to fully run the timer down to zero. 

But for now, what they did was enough. It certainly wasn't against the Broncos and Giants in the prior two weeks, and who knows if it will be next Sunday when they get the Giants again back at home at Lincoln Financial Field.

But they'll take the win, for sure. They just know they can't depend on regularly doing it this way.

"I gotta do a better job of not taking negative runs," Barkley said postgame, after rushing for just 44 yards with a long of nine. "I keep saying that, and I sound like a broken record, but that's something I gotta do. I own it, but at the end of the day, what's most important is we won the football game. I'm excited about that. It felt good to win the game."

And you take that. You take a great Hurts passing performance, you take Smith and Brown going again because of it, and you take a thin Eagles pass rush finally collecting some sacks and generating turnovers – even when it's up against Wentz notoriously trying to extend the play and jam passes through coverage. 

But the reality is that the Eagles' offensive identity since the Hurts-Sirianni era began has been through the run, not the pass, especially after Barkley signed with the team over a year ago. It just hasn't been there this season.

And defensively, they don't have the benefit of facing Carson Wentz every week. They have a hotshot Jaxson Dart coming back around after the Giants already caught them a week ago, then Jordan Love and a Packers team that will be gunning for them after the bye, and Jared Goff and a tough Lions team right after.

They have to get better, and they do know it.

But for now, what they put together on Sunday to beat Minnesota was enough, and maybe just the starting point they needed to get fully going again. 

"Find a way to win, and then identify issues and get better from it," Sirianni said postgame. "I know how I felt for the last two weeks not winning, so I'm never gonna take a win for granted ever again. I think sometimes in the midst of it, you can be like 'Man, we'll be there, we'll get there.' But we're going to enjoy the heck out of this thing, and then we're going to identify the things that we need to work on."

It's still a double-edged sword when it comes to this team, though.

In 2023, they played ugly for a long time, yet always managed to get by. They always said they were going to fully figure it out, but eventually, their luck ran out and they spiraled. 

In 2024, they started rough and still played ugly for a long time, but they stayed with it, and eventually, it all clicked and they trucked over everyone on the way to the Super Bowl. 

In 2025, the jury is still out. But for now, it's enough, yet nothing to rest on. The Eagles know that.

"Our philosophy is always gonna be do whatever we gotta do to win games every single time," Sirianni said at another point. "And then we do what we gotta do to identify problems.

"We're gonna be so excited any time we win a game. We really don't care how it looks."

https://www.phillyvoice.com/eagles-vikings-postgame-reactions-saquon-barkley-nick-sirianni-jalen-hurts-win-pass-rush-run-game-problems/

Unfortunately we see the same things every week so far this year. Sloppy, ill disciplined and kill themselves with penalties. They get hot and then they get very cold. They start well then they go off the boil completely. They have chances to put teams away but they don’t take them and then they need a big play from someone to hopefully win the game.

The NFL is a long season. Teams have to deal with a lot from week to week. The eagles are still dealing with many new faces on defense, banged up offensive line, a new OC and the psychology of getting the high from the Super Bowl out of their heads. Not to mention that every team in the league gets sky high to play the Super Bowl Champions.....They're 7 games into the season and they desperately need the bye week just to get healthy and rested.

The issues they are dealing with don't get fixed immediately. They are a process that can take 8-10 games to iron out. They got Mitchell, Carter and Nakobe Dean back from injury, and Bennet should be good to go after the bye. Dickerson and Jurgens certainly could use some time to heal up.

They are still a team that can beat you in different ways.....as they proved Sunday. Yes, they can be frustrating to watch when they are getting these things ironed out.

But the bottom line is to win the game. The birds are 5-2.....not a bad place to be. They sit at the 3rd seed in the playoff picture right now with a big showdown with the fudge packers in a couple weeks.

Fans and media like to make predictions based on what they've seen so to far project that onto the next game. And that's normal.....but with each and every game, some circumstances change to make those projections unpredictable......which is where the statement "on any given Sunday" comes from.

The eagles have issues...like every other NFL team. But, in my opinion, the have the ability and the talent to get them resolved.

The eagles are going to beat the giants this week......go into the bye week for much needed rest that they'll need to beat GB.

7 hours ago, birdman#12 said:

The NFL is a long season. Teams have to deal with a lot from week to week. The eagles are still dealing with many new faces on defense, banged up offensive line, a new OC and the psychology of getting the high from the Super Bowl out of their heads. Not to mention that every team in the league gets sky high to play the Super Bowl Champions.....They're 7 games into the season and they desperately need the bye week just to get healthy and rested.

I think this is a great point! We don’t want to be playing our best football in October, we want to peak at the right time much like last year. We do need the bye week badly but if we can get there at 6-2? I mean that would be a great outcome. But I think we all want to see them be more consistent on offense and just show us signs of what they are going to be great at this season.