Eagles stats: Saquon Barkley’s second half, DeVonta Smith’s mismatch, and a Super number highlight blowout

The Eagles clinched the NFC East title with a 41-7 victory over the rival Dallas Cowboys and learned a short while later that they were locked into the No. 2 seed in the NFC.

It was a good day for the Eagles, who were playing without Jalen Hurts. Saquon Barkley surpassed the 2,000-yard mark. Kenny Pickett lived out a childhood dream. Tanner McKee threw his first NFL touchdown pass after Pickett went down and almost lost the ball thanks to A.J. Brown. C.J. Gardner-Johnson made up for his ejection last week with two interceptions, returning one of them for a touchdown.

Here are four numbers that stood out from Sunday’s win:

Many of Barkley’s best performances have been boosted by dominant second halves in which the Eagles either protect their lead and keep the clock moving or exert their will on opposing defenses. Sunday was a little bit of both.

Dallas’ defense kept the Eagles off the field early and seemed to be doing what Washington did last week when Hurts left the game: keeping Barkley in check. The running back had just 40 yards at halftime. The running game got going in the second half. Barkley ran for 127 second-half yards, upping his season total after halftime to 1,245. According to CBS Sports, it’s the most second-half yards accumulated since the tracking of play-by-play data began in 1991.

The Eagles ran the ball on 24 of their 29 second-half plays, and Barkley’s 31 total carries were a season high.

» READ MORE: Nick Sirianni’s finest hour: Without Jalen Hurts, the coach leads the depleted Eagles to an NFC East title over the Cowboys

A banged-up Cowboys secondary was always going to be at a disadvantage against Brown and DeVonta Smith. It was just a matter of which receiver would draw the more mismatches.

With All-Pro DaRon Bland mostly shadowing Brown, Smith had a big day.

Smith dominated little-used Cowboys corner Andrew Booth, who has been on and off the practice squad and entered Sunday having played just 61 defensive snaps. It showed. According to Next Gen Stats, Booth lined up against Smith on eight of Smith’s 18 routes. Smith was targeted six times on those eight plays and caught five passes, two of them touchdowns, for 111 of his 120 yards.

Bland, meanwhile, was targeted on just five of the 15 routes he ran covering Brown, though one of them was Brown’s third-quarter 20-yard touchdown.

That’s the year 1936, not 1,936. Are years numbers? Sort of. Let’s at least pretend for the sake of this numbers-driven story that they are.

Anyway ... the secret of McKee, the Eagles’ third-string quarterback, is out, Jordan Mailata said after the game. “The Mormon Missile,” Mailata called McKee, who entered the game after Pickett left with an injury to his ribs.

McKee threw two touchdowns on just four passes as the Eagles protected a lead, but he made some NFL history in the process.

According to Opta Stats, McKee became the first player since 1936 (the draft era) to throw multiple touchdown passes during a debut while throwing five or fewer passes.

» READ MORE: The Eagles are great with Jalen Hurts. They showed against the Cowboys they might be good enough without him.

The Eagles have 13 wins for just the fourth time in their long history.

They previously won 13 or more games in 2004, 2017, and 2022.

What do those four seasons have in common? The Eagles played in the Super Bowl in all of them.