Jalen Carter's career day, decisive win over the Jaguars

The Eagles defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 28-23 on Sunday and probably should have won the game by a much larger margin than what actually happened – a late end zone interception that sealed a victory that was almost improbably snatched away from them.

The game featured some plays that will be remembered here and continued some trends highlighted during the team's four-game winning streak.

Here are three stats that help tell the story of Sunday's win and one that summarizes where the Eagles are through eight games.

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Saquon Barkley and DeVonta Smith stole the spotlight with their outstanding athleticism, and Nakobe Dean's interception made another good day for the defense. So you could be forgiven for not realizing how good Jalen Carter was Sunday.

According to Next Gen Stats, he had one of the best games of his career.

Carter reached a career high with six pressesand three of them came against double teams, which also tied a single-game high for Carter. Additionally, Carter generated five of his six pressures against Jaguars right guard Brandon Scherff, a five-time Pro Bowl player and 2020 first-team All-Pro. Scherff has had no more than four pressures in the past seven seasons, according to Next Gen Stats a single player allowed.

Carter accomplished this while playing an astounding 96% (52) of the team's 56 defensive snaps. The 52 total snaps were the most he played in a game, and the percentage was the highest of Carter's 25-game NFL career.

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75.6

How good was Barkley? With 925 in his first eight games with the Eagles, he has nearly surpassed his total rushing yards with the Giants in 2023 (962 in 14 games).

The big difference? Reserve offensive lineman Nick Gates, a former teammate of Barkley's in New York, had a hunch earlier in the season when he said he was excited to see Barkley running behind a line that can block.

Even without starter Jordan Mailata, who remains sidelined with a hamstring injury, the Eagles had their best run-blocking day of 2024 on Sunday, according to Pro Football Focus, which evaluated the team's performance Run blocking at 75.6just above the 75.5 grade from the Week 1 win in Brazil.

Leading the way was Mekhi Becton, who returned after missing last week's game in Cincinnati with a concussion. PFF gave Becton a 92.3 grade for his run blocking, the highest score of his career. Lane Johnson (91.2) also had a dominant day.

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5.8

AJ Brown's exit from the game with a knee injury after halftime opened the door for Smith to be the standout pass catcher on offense. He ran through.

Smith's size is often hidden by Brown and Barkley, but he remains an elite route runner and catcher.

His 45-yard touchdown catch last week in Cincinnati was his first reception of the season, which Next Gen Stats classifies as a “deep” catch (over 20 air yards). Smith added two a few plays apart on Sunday. First, Jalen Hurts waited for Smith to run a perfect route and then hit him with a kick down the left sideline. That would have been the best play of the game if Barkley hadn't run backwards over a defender: a one-handed, tip-toe catch in the back of the end zone.

According to Next Gen Stats, Smith has now done so 5.8 receptions above expectationsa metric that calculates the difference between actual receptions and the receptions a player is expected to receive.

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377.1

The Eagles are basically at halftime, their Week 9 game in review. There's no real halfway mark in a 17-game schedule, but there are 18 game weeks in the NFL season, so here we are.

There have been plenty of stories this season about an offense that isn't firing on all cylinders at times, and that has been the case at times. But the Eagles ended the posting on Sunday 377.1 yards of offense per gameSixth in the NFL, and they are becoming more of a run-first offense, with Barkley playing a big role.

The Eagles are second in the NFL in rushing yards per game (174.8) and 20th in passing yards (202.4).

They are a little behind in the points standings. Although they rank sixth in yards allowed, they are 10th in points per game (24.9), which is likely a result of what happened on Sunday when they left some points behind.