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In a moment during their Wild Card victory over the Green Bay Packers, Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley made a selfless play that likely won them the game. And following the game, head coach Nick Sirianni had nothing but positive words for the Eagles' running back, per PHLY's Zach Berman on X.
“Once you can take knees there, you slide because we've seen a couple things happen,” Sirianni said. “I think, again, [Dallas Goedert] had one in the Washington game I believe in 2021. He caught a little pass in the flat. Bam, he slid. We took three knees, won the game. Again, that's awesome. Now, you get one in the open field and he could have scored, but you take three knees, you win the game.
“You never want to lose on something you can completely control by going down. So that's something we practice. That's something that we talk about. That's something that Saquon asked before he event went in. ‘Hey are we in no mas?’ I'm like, ‘Yeah, yeah, we are.’ That means get the first down and go down. He performed it perfectly. It'll be a clip that we'll show, just like we show Dallas', and just like we show all the other ones forever.”
So, while Barkley could've scored the touchdown and furthered the Eagles' lead over the Packers, he took the selfless approach, going down and bringing out victory formation.
This isn't the first time Barkley's chosen the team over himself either. In the regular-season finale, Barkley could've petitioned to play, as he was just 101 yards away from breaking Eric Dickerson's single-season rushing record.
Instead, Barkley understood the risk and reward of putting himself in a somewhat meaningless Week 18 game, just to potentially get hurt before the Eagles' playoff run.
Nothing they did in Week 18 could've secured them the No. 1 seed in the NFC, so instead of risking an injury one week before the playoffs, Barkley joined the other starters on the sideline to finish the regular season.
Then, during Wild Card Weekend, Barkley exhibited his team-first mentality again, foregoing a touchdown in the postseason to ensure the Eagles advanced to the divisional round.
