Saquon Barkley on Friday scored three touchdowns to spark the Philadelphia Eagles to a 34-29 win over the Green Bay Packers in the first regular-season NFL game in South America.
Barkley, who joined the Eagles in March after six seasons with the New York Giants, ran 24 times for 109 yards and two touchdowns, and caught two passes for 23 yards and a touchdown in a landmark thriller.
“It was really important for me just to get going,” Barkley said. “I just needed that first tackle to get me going again.”
Photo: Reuters
Barkley joined Terrell Owens as the only players with three touchdowns in their Eagles debut.
The “Love Hurts” meeting saw Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love and Eagles counterpart Jalen Hurts stage a high-scoring spectacle in the historic Brazil contest, played at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena.
Hurts completed 20-of-34 passes for 278 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, while Love completed half his 34 passes for 260 yards with two touchdown passes and an interception before a late-game ankle injury.
“It was a good game, back and forth,” Eagles receiver A.J. Brown said. “A lot of things were going to go wrong because it’s the first game, but we made adjustments and it just came down to making plays.”
Hurts hurled a 67-yard touchdown pass to Brown early in the third quarter as Philadelphia grabbed a 24-19 edge.
Two third-down Eagles penalties helped sustain Green Bay’s 70-yard scoring march in response, Love flipping a 2-yard touchdown pass to Christian Watson as the Packers reclaimed the lead 26-24.
Love was intercepted to set up Barkley’s 2-yard touchdown run for a 31-26 Eagles lead but Brayden Narveson kicked a 26-yard field-goal with 7 minutes, 52 seconds remaining to pull the Packers to within 31-29.
Hurts and Barkley guided a masterful march of 67 yards over 16 plays that took more than seven minutes. Jake Elliott’s 21-yard field goal boosted the Eagles’ lead and left the Packers only 27 seconds to seek the winning points.
Love threw a 33-yard pass to Jayden Reed to reach Eagles territory in the dying seconds, but sustained a left-ankle injury on the next play and Malik Willis was sacked two plays later to end the game.
LaFleur was certain missed scoring chances, such as being stopped and having to settle for three short field goals rather than scoring touchdowns, caused the loss.
“I challenged everybody. We’ve got to learn from this,” LaFleur said. “There was a lot of opportunities we didn’t capitalize on — when you do that you get beat.”
The Eagles were unhappy about missed chances as well, including wide receiver Devonte Smith, who had seven catches for 84 yards.
“We were just shooting ourselves in the foot, up and down offensively, but we just kept going,” he said. “You’re going to have sloppy games like this but it’s all how you respond to it.”
The first Friday game since 1970 in the NFL’s opening week was the first of five matchups this season in venues outside the US, including three games next month in London and a November contest in Munich, Germany.
The NHL postponed the Los Angeles Kings’ home game against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday with several massive wildfires burning across the greater Los Angeles area. The Kings and Flames were scheduled to play on Wednesday night at the Kings’ downtown arena. The NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers were scheduled to host the Charlotte Hornets in the same arena last night. “Our hearts are with our entire Los Angeles community,” the Kings said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard working first responders who are diligently working to contain the fire and protect our community. We appreciate the league’s support in keeping our
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
TWO IN A WEEK: Despite an undefeated start to the year playing alongside Jiang Xinyu of China, Wu Fang-hsien is to play the Australian Open with a Russian partner Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien yesterday triumphed at the Hobart International, winning the women’s doubles title at the US$275,094 outdoor hard-court tournament, while McCartney Kessler lifted the trophy in the women’s singles. Fourth-ranked Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China took 1 hour, 15 minutes to defeat Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Fanny Stollar of Hungary, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, their second title in a week. Wu and Jiang on Sunday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, beating Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US. Their winning ways continued in Australia as they stretched
EL CLASSICO: La Liga champions Real Madrid would face Barcelona in the Super Cup final tomorrow. Barça secured their final spot after a 2-0 win over Bilbao on Wednesday Real Madrid would chase a record-equaling 14th Spanish Super Cup title in the final against Barcelona after second-half goals by Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo helped them to a 3-0 win over Mallorca in the semi-finals on Thursday. England midfielder Bellingham broke the deadlock after the hour mark with a low shot into the middle of the goal before Mallorca defender Martin Valjent’s own goal doubled the lead in stoppage time followed by a Rodrygo strike from close range. Spanish champions Real are to play Barcelona for the trophy tomorrow after goals by Gavi and Lamine Yamal earned Barça a 2-0 win over
RSS