Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley was disappointed in himself after a crucial drop late in Monday night’s loss to the Atlanta Falcons.
“I let my team down today,” Barkley told reporters postgame, via Ralph Vacchiano of Fox Sports. “Shouldn’t have put the defense in that position. I make that catch, the game is over.”
Barkley couldn’t haul in a pass on third-and-3 with 1:46 remaining that would have all but sealed the contest for the Eagles.
Philadelphia kicked a field goal on fourth down to go up 21-15, but Barkley’s miscue stopped the clock and left 1:39 for Atlanta’s offense to put together a drive. The Falcons quickly went 70 yards on six plays for a touchdown and the go-ahead extra point.
A third-down run would have taken more time off the clock, but Barkley saw no issue with the decision from the coaching staff.
“I thought it was a great play call,” Barkley added. “I just gotta make the catch.”
He added: “Any loss sucks. But, when a game comes down to a few plays, it hurts a little more when you’re the one who’s making a mistake on those plays.”
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni defended the decision to not run the ball on the critical third-down play.
“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, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
Sirianni added that there was a “mechanism” on the third-down call where if Barkley isn’t open, quarterback Jalen Hurts would sit down and take a sack to run the clock before kicking a field goal, according to Jimmy Kempski of PhillyVoice.
The Eagles still had a 94% chance of winning the game after the Barkley drop, according to Next Gen Stats. Philadelphia falls to 1-1 with the loss and will travel to New Orleans to take on the Saints in Week 3.
