'I dropped the ball'. Eagles' mistakes costly in stunning last-minute loss to Falcons

PHILADELPHIA − The Eagles were making things incredibly hard on themselves.

They had too many empty possessions on offense, and they couldn't generate a pass rush or stop the Falcons on defense.

And then it cost them when they were about to put the game away with just under 2 minutes left. Facing a 3rd-and-3 from the Falcons' 10, Jalen Hurts threw a pass in the flat to Saquon Barkley, who dropped it. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni then decided to kick a field goal for a 6-point lead.

"I dropped the ball. I let my team down today," Barkley said. "I shouldn’t have put the defense in that position. I make that catch, and the game’s over."

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Except that it wasn't over. The Eagles' defense, which had stiffened after the go-ahead TD, allowed Kirk Cousins and the Falcons to march 70 yards in 65 seconds as Cousins' 7-yard TD pass to Drake London with 34 seconds left sent the Eagles to a stunning 22-21 loss Monday.

"We have to intensely control the controllables," Hurts said. "I think when I look at this game, there are a lot of things that we could have controlled fundamentally in our details. The little things that we just didn’t take advantage of. And so that’s this opportunity for us to learn from it.

"I think it’s a great test for us.”

The Eagles (1-1) failed that test Monday.

It had looked so promising just minutes earlier. That's when Hurts and Barkley took over the running game as the Eagles embarked on a scoring drive that took 9 minutes, 34 seconds as they took an 18-15 lead with 6:47 left.

When the Falcons got the ball back, safety Chauncey Gardner-Johnson stopped Falcons running back Bijan Robinson on 4th-and-1 from the Falcons' 39 with 5:38 left.

"It’s do or die. It’s him versus me," Gardner-Johnson said. "Unfortunately, that wasn’t the ultimate (play) to win the game. Like I said, there are other things in this game that we gotta look at, and we gotta fix as a team from the offensive side, the defensive side and special teams side.

"We can’t dial in on one thing. Everyone wants to look at one play, and this and this and that. We’re a team, and things happen."

The Eagles couldn't run out the clock on offense, and the Falcons made them pay on defense.

The Eagles played without star wide receiver A.J. Brown, who sat out with a hamstring injury. And they didn't generate much of a pass rush on the mostly immobile Cousins. The Eagles had only 1 sack, and that came in the third quarter by Milton Williams.

But the Eagles finally got the running game going, much to the delight of the Lincoln Financial Field crowd, who booed mightily after the Eagles' first possession when Barkley did not touch the ball.

He did soon after, and Hurts used his legs, too, along with his arm.

Hurts completed 23 of 30 passes for 183 yards and a touchdown. But he threw an interception with 19 seconds left to end the Eagles' last chance. Hurts also had 13 carries for 85 yards and a touchdown. Barkley, meanwhile, followed up his 109-yard rushing effort in Week 1 with 95 yards on 22 carries.

In all, the Eagles had 186 yards on the ground and 365 total.

But the defense couldn't stop Cousins, who went 20 of 29 for 241 yards and 2 TDs, or Bijan Robinson who had 97 yards on 14 carries.

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Cousins had plenty of time to find his receivers, such as on a 4th-and-4 from Atlanta's 47 late in the third quarter. That's when Cousins hit Ray-Ray McCloud over the middle for 11 yards to the Eagles' 42. On the next play, Cousins stood in against a blitz and hit Darnell Moody, who broke Gardner-Johnson's tackle and scored.

That gave the Falcons a 15-10 lead with 1:21 left in the third quarter.

The Eagles' missed chances from early in the game proved to be their downfall. It started right away. The Eagles didn't use Barkley at all on the first drive, and they stalled at midfield.

Then when they did use Barkley on the second drive, to great effect, the Eagles passed up a field goal on 4th-and-4 from the Falcons' 9. Hurts threw incomplete into the end zone, and the game remained scoreless.

"Any time it doesn’t work out, that’s why I’m sitting in this seat, the head coaching seat," Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said about that failed fourth-down play "I’ve got to be ready for the consequences of whether it works or doesn’t work. In that scenario, obviously didn’t work. Obviously, I’m going to second guess myself in those scenarios. Same thing on the third-and-3 (pass to Barkley). It was an incomplete pass. Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn’t work."

Some of those plays did work, like when the Eagles faced a 4th-and-3 from Atlanta's 41 in the second quarter. That's when Hurts took off and ran, picking up 23 yards to the Falcons' 18. Then on 3rd-and-11 from the 19, Hurts ran for 15 yards to the 4.

A few plays later, Hurts hit DeVonta Smith for a 7-yard TD, and the Eagles led 7-3 with 5:15 left in the first half.

But the Falcons added field goals to end the first half and start the second.

Once again, the Eagles drove deep into the Falcons' territory, getting to the 13 on Hurts' 19-yard pass to Smith. But the drive stalled again. This time, facing a 4th-and-3 from the 6, Jake Elliott ended up kicking a 29-yard field goal for a 10-9 lead.

But the Eagles needed more there. And again when it mattered most, both on Barkley's drop, then on Cousins' lightning fast game-winning drive.

"It's part of the game. I just gotta be better," Barkley said "I let my team down. I gotta man up to it. I gotta own it, which I'm doing. I promised those guys in the locker room that I'll be better from it."

He's not alone.

Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on X @Mfranknfl.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: 'I dropped the ball'. Eagles' mistakes costly in stunning last-minute loss to Falcons