Eagles muzzle Saquon Barkley and the run game. It speaks volumes about Jalen Hurts.

Saquon Barkley sat perched on a bed with anti-inflammatory belts wrapped around his famously robust thighs. He wasn’t the only Eagles player already in recovery mode on a short week in the home locker room at Lincoln Financial Field.

But Barkley looked at his phone on the foam mattress longer than the others, despite his light workload on Sunday. The running back had just nine touches — the fewest of his NFL career — in the Eagles’ 21-17 loss to the Denver Broncos that featured an epic fourth-quarter meltdown.

“Before I point the finger,” Barkley said, “I’m going to point the thumb.”

His six rushing attempts tied a career low in games he finished. And even though the Eagles’ took a 17-3 lead early in the third quarter and into the final frame — normally when they put teams away on the ground in the Nick Sirianni era — Barkley had just one carry in the second half.

“I really don’t know what people want,” Barkley said. “If I touch the ball too much sometimes, we’re not throwing enough. We throw it too much, I only have nine touches. Like I’m not in the business of, ‘What are we doing enough?’ I’m in the business of winning football games, and we didn’t win a football game.

“With nine touches, we had opportunity to win a football game still, and we didn’t.”

» READ MORE: Grading the Eagles' loss to the Denver Broncos

Certainly, the Eagles had chances to close out the Broncos. A sequence of blunders, penalties, and downright sloppiness on both sides of the ball allowed a comeback in which Denver scored 18 unanswered fourth-quarter points.

But the Eagles have been unable to consistently run the ball all season, and now Sirianni and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo seemingly don’t want to. Or at least, that’s how they handled play calling in the fifth game of the season.

Overall, quarterback Jalen Hurts dropped to pass 46 times vs. nine rushes. There were some run-pass option plays that resulted in throws. But the 84-16 imbalance was remarkable for an offense that has been run-based for most of Hurts’ tenure as the starter.

“Obviously, we want to run the ball more than we were able to today, or, pardon me, what we did today,” Sirianni said. “You always want to come out of that game with Saquon getting enough touches for the type of player he is.”

But the run game neglect is more about other pieces of the offense than it is Barkley. Most agreed with wide receiver A.J. Brown’s comments last month that the Eagles needed to be more aggressive through the air, with opponents focused more on containing a ground attack that dominated defenses a year ago.

Hurts completed 16 of his first 24 throws for 212 yards and two touchdowns on Sunday — the second going to Barkley on a wheel route that covered 47 yards on the Eagles’ opening drive of the second half. But the offense stalled just as it did at Tampa Bay last week, and the quarterback completed just 7 of his final 14 attempts for 68 yards.

There were myriad mistakes in the final five possessions, but Hurts struggled with Denver’s simulated pressures when forced to drop. The Eagles kept hurting themselves on early downs, often on run plays.

Brown false started on a third-quarter first down that appeared to be a run. Two drives later, after the Eagles went three-and-out on three pass plays, Barkley’s 7-yard tote was negated by left guard Brett Toth’s holding penalty. Barkley got the handoff a series later, but was dropped for no gain when Broncos nose tackle D.J. Jones knifed past center Cam Jurgens.

“There were a couple scenarios right there where we got a little bit behind the sticks,” Sirianni said. “... Those are some self-inflicted things that we did. When those happen, I’m always putting that on myself.”

» READ MORE: A.J. Brown got his wish but still lost because Jalen Hurts isn’t consistently good enough | Marcus Hayes

A year ago, the Eagles’ season turned partly because Sirianni and Co. decided to emphasize Barkley and an elite offensive line in the run game. That also meant less of Hurts dropping to throw. They went from a 41-59 run-pass ratio in the first four games to 57-43 in the next 10 the quarterback started and finished.

The results spoke for themselves. Barkley exploded, and Hurts managed. It worked. There were games when the roles were reversed, to some extent, most notably in the Super Bowl, when the Chiefs contained Barkley and Hurts capitalized with his arm and legs.

The quarterback can handle more of the load. But when it gets lopsided the seams often start to show. He’s had polar performances in each of the last three games when he’s looked almost invincible for one half, and powerless in the other. And it finally caught up to the Eagles.

But the run game issues are all their own. Barkley has missed some holes, and maybe he hasn’t looked as freakishly athletic, but his numbers before contact are less than half those of last season. He had a 17-yard burst off the left on a nicely executed first-quarter rush but was held to just 13 yards on his five other carries.

“We hit big on one and then go back to it, and they kind of adjust it and change what they’re doing,” Jurgens said. “We got to figure it out. It’s kind of reality setting in.”

A reality is biting an O-line that just hasn’t been as superior as in year’s past, especially in the interior. Left guard Landon Dickerson left early with an ankle sprain, compounding knee and back injuries that have hindered him through the first month.

“He’s been battling through a lot of stuff,” Toth said.

» READ MORE: Landon Dickerson’s status for Giants game uncertain after leaving Eagles loss with ankle injury

Jurgens hasn’t been on the injury report, but he had offseason back surgery.

“Every game is getting a little better,” he said, “But it’s football. You go out there, don’t matter if you’re 100 [percent] or 60. Your play is your play.”

His play hasn’t been near his norm. Right guard Tyler Steen has so far acquitted himself, but there has been an obvious run blocking dropoff from predecessor Mekhi Becton. Tackles Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata are holding steady, but the whole operation has been unstable.

The tight ends can’t consistently hold blocks. The receivers don’t look as interested in participating. Defenses are making sure Barkley is running into heavier boxes against base personnel, rather than nickel, which the Eagles often gashed last season.

But they also could pound the game away with heavy packages and their four-minute offense. Not so this season.

“I still believe so much in the guys that we have up front and who we have in the backfield,” Sirianni said.

» READ MORE: Penalties, called and uncalled, proved critical in Eagles’ loss to Broncos

He knows he needs them in the run game, especially if Hurts continues to struggle with the offense disproportionately on his shoulders. The quarterback is always going to have by far the most responsibilities on offense.

But that’s the cost. While the run game problems start with Barkley and the O-line, it’s still as much about Hurts — or what he can’t do. The same applies to all aspects of the offensive operation.

Barkley fell on the sword for his fourth-down illegal shift penalty that erased a beautiful 30-yard hookup between Hurts and receiver DeVonta Smith. But Barkley’s motion came too late into the play clock, even though the offense got to the line with 15 seconds left.

“I think if we operate a little faster, get to the ball, we can maybe avoid some of that,” Hurts said. “Nonetheless, when you have a motion tagged to a play, I put that toward operation as a unit and that starts with me.”

Hurts paused for several seconds when asked if Patullo’s calls were giving him enough time at the line. But he needs to be faster once he gets the call. The Eagles go deeper into the clock than almost any offense, and that’s not new with Patullo.

“I think that’s relative,” he said. “I get the play, I go make the play happen, so I can’t point the finger at anything else.”

It’s time to point the thumb. It’s sticking out, and it’s sore.