It's become the backwards hurdle heard around the world.
In the couple of days since the Eagles' 28-23 win over the Jaguars, Saquon Barkley's all-time, highlight-reel reverse jump over Jacksonville's Jarrion Jones continued to draw reactions from all over and at every angle.
Like from the view behind the Eagles' sideline (courtesy of ziglock1 on TikTok):
This angle of the Eagles' bench reacting to Saquon's hurdle 😮
(via ziglock1/TikTok) pic.twitter.com/INISzwIlqM— NFL UK & Ireland (@NFLUKIRE) November 5, 2024
And after the fact on Micah Parsons' Bleacher Report show:
Micah Parsons on Saquon Barkley:
"The Giants did not appreciate him. And now the rest of the league is facing the consequences of the Giants' stupidity."
(via The Edge with Micah Parsons) pic.twitter.com/Bqx28y7ukR— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) November 4, 2024
"For Saquon, this is a blessing in disguise just off the strength of people are seeing what you're capable of when people appreciate you," the Cowboys star pass rusher said. "The Giants did not appreciate him, and now the rest of the league is facing the consequences of the Giants' stupidity.
"This is always who he was."
And Barkley will be a banged-up and struggling Dallas team's problem this week, when the Birds make their way down to Arlington this Sunday looking to make it five straight wins in a place where they haven't won since the Super Bowl run in 2017.
Until then, a bit more from Barkley's backwards hurdle, like Nike's excellent ad:
Nike turned Saquon Barkley’s insane backwards hurdle into an ad 🔥 pic.twitter.com/3MiE9cWUvf
— Nice Kicks (@nicekicks) November 4, 2024
And the NFL Films clip of Jalen Hurts' reaction posted on Tuesday:
.@JalenHurts couldn't help but laugh after seeing @saquon's reverse hurdle 😂 pic.twitter.com/n8ud10PPnh
— NFL (@NFL) November 5, 2024
Hey, sometimes the only thing you can really do is laugh.
A few more Eagles odds and ends…
Standing pat
Tuesday was the NFL trade deadline. GM Howie Roseman didn't make any moves. The 2024 Eagles are running with what they got.
You can read about what the Eagles didn't do and what other notable NFC teams did from our own Jimmy Kempski HERE.
Beast Mode Baun
Zack Baun was all over the field in Sunday's win over the Jaguars, making a game-leading 10 tackles (7 solo) with one of them for a loss and then a late-second quarter interception that led straight to an Eagles touchdown and a 16-0 Philadelphia lead before the half.
Between Baun and Nakobe Dean, who made the game-saving interception in the end zone on Jacksonville's final drive, the Eagles have been getting solid linebacking play throughout their four-game win streak, which has been a major contributing factor to the defense's turnaround since coming back from the bye.
A severe lack of linebacking depth handcuffed the Eagles during their second-half spiral in 2023, which compelled them to go sign Baun and the since-released Devin White in the offseason.
White, obviously, didn't work out, but with the 27-year old Baun, the Eagles have gotten everything they could've hoped for, plus the major boost of Dean beginning to step up in his third season.
"He's such a good athlete," head coach Nick Sirianni said of Baun after Sunday's win. "He gets guys down in the open field, he makes great tackles, and now he's taking the ball away with special plays."
"The linebackers are the guys that are getting everybody on the same page, they're in on a lot of plays, and I think our guys are doing good," Sirianni continued. "I think our backups, you know, we got a lot of confidence in them as well. So it's so much fun when the work that you do in the dark shows up in the light, and I really see that from those two guys [Baun and Dean] of all the work that they've put in."
A position of once glaring weakness across the middle of the field has suddenly become a surprising strength for the Birds.
So now what?
"You just gotta ride the wave," Baun said at his locker postgame. "We caught the wave, now we just gotta ride all the way down."
Zack Baun lays out for the interception!
📺: #JAXvsPHI on CBS/Paramount+
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/pzTokw8zIl— NFL (@NFL) November 3, 2024
Trust the process (and the players)
The Eagles stayed ambitious with their fourth-down attempts on Sunday, two-point conversion tries, too.
Things just didn't go their way.
The Eagles went 0-for-2 on fourth downs against the Jaguars, then had their three two-point conversion attempts fail as well – granted, with one of them being a "Tush Push" try that did arguably break the plane but didn't get ruled as such.
The Eagles survived, but the game finished close – much more than it probably had any business to – with those gambles and the context they were called within playing a role.
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Fortune just didn't favor the Birds in that regard, but in his day-after press conference on Monday, Sirianni told the local media over a video call that he isn't regretting the risks he had his team take, nor is he shying away from that aggressiveness in those situational calls.
"Anytime it doesn't go how you want it to go, you're gonna go back and look at everything," Sirianni said. "That's our job. Our job is to get better. If we want our players to get better, then we have to be in the mindset. Looking back on it, and I'm thinking would I do anything different, and to be honest, sometimes I say 'Absolutely.' In this particular case, I felt like we did the right thing in all those scenarios.
"I understand that I'll always be judged on the outcome, not the process, but I have to make sure that I stick to the process. Same with the players and our preparation throughout the week. We always have to stick to our process, and we've been really good at that. It's helped us win a lot of games. So, again, it's a lonely place. It's definitely a lonely place when you don't convert a fourth down. I'll always take that on my shoulders – always. But, at that time, in that game, and what we've done in the past, I was doing everything I thought to help our football team win the football game."
The call to go for it in the NFL is always a double-edged sword. When a coach takes the risk and wins on it, they're a genius.
When they take it and fail, especially in this town, well, the radio lines won't have any shortage of callers the next morning.
Sirianni has taken those risks a lot so far this year. On fourth down tries, the Eagles are 11-for-17 with a 64.7 percent conversion rate that's actually the seventh-highest in the NFL, per ESPN.
The catch is, those failures on the dice rolls and the points in the games where they've happened have felt excruciating.
Sirianni, however, has maintained a belief in his process, and his players.
"Doing those two things, trusting your process and trusting your players has given us a good track record of it," Sirianni said. "But hey, it didn't work yesterday.
"It's a lonely place when it doesn't work, but again, I don't know any other solution than to trust those two things and always constantly try to get better."
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