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

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.

Brad Rempel/Imagn Images

DeVonta Smith's touchdown and career-high 183 receiving yards were big reasons why the Eagles won.

"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.

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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."

Jeffrey Becker/Imagn Images

Jalen Hurts was excellent through the air in the Eagles' win on Sunday.

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