Saquon Barkley and the Eagles’ offensive line met the challenge against the Ravens’ run defense

Barkley and the Eagles' offensive line have faith that sooner or later, the blocking is going to lead to a huge run. The Baltimore Ravens' vaunted run defense experienced that Sunday.

Eagles running back Saquon Barkley tries to escape a tackle by Baltimore's Brandon Stephens in the second quarter Sunday.Read moreMonica Herndon / Staff Photographer

by Jeff Neiburg

Published Dec. 1, 2024, 9:58 p.m. ET

BALTIMORE — By the time Jalen Hurts was putting the ball into Saquon Barkley’s stomach, Jordan Mailata had already pulled from his left tackle spot and was in position to the right of right guard Mekhi Becton, right where he needed to be to meet Baltimore’s Roquan Smith.

There’s a trust that exists between Barkley and his burly blockers. Barkley was describing his game-sealing 25-yard touchdown run after the Eagles’ 24-19 win over the Ravens and how he loved the call, loves how well his tackles, Mailata and Lane Johnson, move around, and knew Mailata was going to do his job.

“I just ran through [the hole] as fast as I can, pretty much with my eyes closed and got to open field,” Barkley said.

Barkley got into the secondary, where Parris Campbell and Jahan Dotson were running their defensive backs out of Barkley’s way. The touchdown with 7 minutes, 56 seconds left and Jake Elliott’s extra point pushed the Eagles’ lead to two scores.

Wait, your eyes were closed?

“I wouldn’t say it was closed,” Barkley said, laughing. “It’s called basically blind faith. I trust it so much that he’s going to make the block that I just followed his hip and hit it full speed.”

On paper, thinking the Eagles would come to M&T Bank Stadium and do the things on offense that had powered them to a seven-game winning streak involved a little bit of blind faith in the run-first approach that has carried the Eagles. Baltimore’s run defense entered Sunday ranked second in the NFL in yards allowed per game at 77.9. Just twice in 12 tries entering the game had an opposing team reached 100 yards on the ground vs. the Ravens.

There was reason to believe, however, that the Eagles could crack the code. Baltimore’s second-ranked run defense had been built up on bad opponents. The Ravens had played five of their 12 games vs. run offenses ranked 27th or worst. The Eagles, of course, are the league’s best team on the ground.

The Eagles racked up 140 yards on the ground — the most the Ravens have allowed all season — on 33 carries, an average of 4.2 yards per rush. Barkley totaled 107 yards on 23 carries, the eighth time this season he reached triple digits, tying Wilbert Montgomery’s franchise record in 1981 for the most 100-yard games in a single season. Barkley, who has already rushed for a career high in yards for a season with 1,499, is closing in on LeSean McCoy’s single-season Eagles record of 1,607.

“We knew how good of a defense they are, but at the end of the day they still didn’t go against us,” Barkley said. “We knew how great of an offense we are and how great of a run team we are and especially how great those guys are up front. We heard it. We’d seen it. But at the end of the day, we wanted to come in and get a win and if it took us to rush for 50 yards and throw for 300 yards, so be it. The most important thing is to get a win and we got that.”

They got it because they stuck to their guns. The Eagles are a run-first offense with one of the league’s best runners carrying the ball behind one of the league’s best offensive lines. They are a power offense with a quarterback who has learned to not turn the ball over and to take advantage of his team’s attributes.

Early on Sunday, though, the Eagles looked like they might try to win with Hurts’ arm. He dropped back to pass seven times in the first 10 plays. The run game was working at times when the Eagles went to it, but a familiar trend continued Sunday for the Eagles: They wore their opponent out and Barkley took advantage in the second half. He entered Sunday with 66% of his total yards coming in the second half of games — a tribute to the Eagles both imposing their will and killing clocks with leads. Barkley had 45 yards at halftime and then 62 after the break.

“That’s just the run game,” Becton said. “It’s always been like that in football. The run game never hits off the rip, you always got to work your way into it for sure.”

Barkley, Becton said, was his usual self on the sideline before breaking things open. He was building up the blockers in front of him. The big runs were coming, Barkley said.

“We rally behind him and he rallies behind us,” Becton said. “The message was just let’s keep going, keep our foot on their neck. It’s going to pop sooner or later.”

It eventually did when it mattered most midway through the fourth quarter.

“It was slower than usual today,” Johnson said. “It took a while for some of those big runs to come through, but we stayed consistent with it and we did a good job there during the second half.

“You have a guy like that, all he needs is a little bit of daylight.”

It’s even easier when the holes are so big that he can close his eyes.