Saquon Barkley knows he doesn't play for 'big, bad Eagles anymore' with team on 6-game losing streak

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Saquon Barkley says he wants to stay with the Philadelphia Eagles instead of potentially getting traded by the Nov. 10 NFL deadline.

The Eagles running back believes that, yes, better days are still ahead for an injury-riddled and ill-performing team.

Just not necessarily the rest of this season.

The last time the Eagles started 2-6 — as they are now following a 27-10 loss Sunday at Washington — was in 1999, Andy Reid's first season as coach. The Eagles have lost six straight games for the first time since they dropped eight consecutive games in 2012. That was Reid’s final season as their coach.

Will this season serve as coach Nick Sirianni's swan song?

It seems almost everything is on the table for the Eagles as a season that opened with Super Bowl expectations has disintegrated into one of the worst ones since Reid was hired and the franchise entered its greatest period of sustained success.

The collapse has been so severe that Barkley, who rushed for 2,000 yards during the Eagles’ Super Bowl championship season in 2024, needed assurances from the front office that he wouldn’t be traded. Barkley said he wanted to stick around to help the Eagles again become title contenders.

The window seems closed on that happening this season.

“We're not the big, bad Eagles anymore, I guess, right?” Barkley said. “We've got to understand that.”

That won't sit well with team owner Jeffrey Lurie. Lurie has never been shy to fire coaches, no matter how successful with the franchise, once the team hits the skids.

Reid was fired in 2012 after his first losing season since 1999. Chip Kelly had back-to-back 10-win seasons and was then fired with the Eagles at 6-9 in 2015. Doug Pederson led the Eagles to their first Super Bowl championship in franchise history and followed that up with two more playoff appearances. He was fired after posting a losing record in the 2020 season.

History shows that Sirianni has every reason to sit on the hot seat unless the Eagles somehow get on one heck of a heater.

“Everyone’s always giving us their best shot,” Sirianni said. “I know nobody feels sorry for us. So it’s our job to go and do everything we can do to fix it, so we don’t have this feeling for the last six games.”

There's not much going right at this point of the season for a team as bad as the Eagles.

Everything. Jake Elliott missed a 41-yard field goal. Quinyon Mitchell got burned by Treylon Burks for a 53-yard reception. Barkley, still hampered by injuries, rushed for only 30 yards and a long run of five yards on 13 carries. The list of underachieving Eagles players is a long one.

Jordan Mailata continues to introduce himself for national television audiences as a graduate of “Jeff Stoutland University,” in place of a school. Stoutland, the Eagles' longtime offensive line coach, split with the team at the end of last season and his absence has been felt both in production and as a popular presence in the locker room.

“You can't win games by not being able to be efficient in the run game, not being able to protect the QB,” Mailata said.

Sean Mannion. The first-year offensive coordinator has not shown the imagination or the understanding of the responsibilities needed to work as an effective play-caller. The Eagles scored only 10 points against a Washington team that entered with the second-worst defense in the NFL at 28.7 points per game.

The Eagles have averaged just 15 points and 270.3 yards per game in Tanner McKee’s three starts in place of Jalen Hurts.

Sirianni had been steadfast in his faith in Mannion over the last few weeks but did not give him an endorsement when asked if the beleaguered coordinator would keep his role.

“I’m not thinking about any of that stuff right now,” Sirianni said. "We need to get better as a whole. And I got a lot of faith in everybody in that locker room. I got a lot of faith in the coaches in that locker room. I’ll keep it at that.”

Safety Michael Carter suffered an abdominal injury.

3 — The number of teams that started 2-6 and have ever made the playoffs. The 1970 Cincinnati Bengals won the final seven games of the season and finished 8-6 and lost their first game of the playoffs. The 2020 Washington Football Team was actually 2-7 before it rebounded to win four straight games and win the NFC East with a 7-9 record. Washington also lost its playoff game. The 2022 Jacksonville Jaguars started 2-6 and won five straight games to finish 9-8. They won a playoff game and lost the next week to Kansas City.

Sunday is pretty much the last chance for the Eagles to attempt a playoff run. They host the New York Giants, who are in the driver’s seat to win the woebegone NFC East with a record of 4-2-1.

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