Packers-Eagles On Second Thought: Baun's Breakout And A No-Slay Zone

A second pass of the Eagles' season-opening win reveals a Zack Baun breakout and a healthy respect for Darius Slay.

Sep 6, 2024; Sao Paulo, BRA; Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Zack Baun (53) tackles Green Bay Packers running back Emanuel Wilson (31) during the second half at Neo Quimica Arena. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Lost in the shadow of the São Paulo premiere of the Saquon Show during the Eagles’ 34-29 season-opening win over Green Bay was the mesmerizing performance of fifth-year Philadelphia linebacker Zack Baun.

Defense was in such short supply in the South American city that there was some concern that Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes banned the idea of stopping offense as a supplement to his highly publicized free speech crackdown on the X.com platform.  

If not for Baun’s 15-tackle, two-sack performance that wouldn’t be a bad theory because the Eagles and Packers combined for 824 total yards and the 63 points. And that’s with plenty of meat left on the bone due to Jalen Hurts’ turnovers and Jordan Love’s accuracy issues.

The “Friday Night Lights,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni opined on from his youth in Western New York morphed into an Arena Football-like vibe of first-stop wins.

And while that sentiment may include a bit of hyperbole when the Eagles’ defense did do something positive Baun was in the middle of things as a playmaking whirlwind that served as a worthy replicate to his good friend and former Wisconsin teammate Andrew Van Ginkel from defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s scheme in Miami last season.

For all the talk of Nakobe Dean vs. Devin White as the Eagles’ three-down LB, it was Baun who played all 67 snaps against Green Bay with Dean lagging slightly behind at 64 and  White back in Philadelphia dealing with an ankle injury.

Saquon Barkey, the Eagles’ dynamic running back who produced three touchdowns in his debut with the team, certainly got a game ball. Sirianni should have handed the first one to Baun, however. 

Which brings us into...

THE SAQUON EFFECT

Peel back the onion, and the numbers weren’t that impressive on a play-to-play basis but this is what GM Howie Roseman was visualizing when he zigged after setting the stage for others to zag, and invested in Barkley at the devalued running back position.

The John Mara jokes were flying Saturday morning after the Eagles finally produced what Giants fans long thought they would see with Barkley in North Jersey. Giants GM Joe Schoen has the tougher job today, trying to explain the “Saquon Show” is a great fit for Philadelphia but a bad one for Big Blue. 

Those two ideas are not remotely mutually exclusive.

The best example of that was Barkley’s 18-yard touchdown reception from Hurts on a wheel route. 

With the Eagles, A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith took half the Packers’ secondary away on in-breaking routes while Barkley leaked out with only linebacker Isaiah McDuffie to beat.

With the Giants, every defensive coordinator NY faced had Barkley locked up before he got his morning coffee. Stopping him was Plans A, B ,and C.

Now Barkley is just another face in a crowd of playmakers you have to account for and the impact he created in Sao Paulo was intoxicating.

Barkley ended up with 26 touches for 134 scrimmage yards. Take out the TD reception and his 34-yard run to end the third quarter and you’ve got 24 touches that produced 82 yards, only 3.4 yards per clip.

But think of Barkley as the old-school cleanup hitter in baseball who might go 0-for-3 before blasting a three-run home run that changes the game's complexion.

It’s one week but Barkley delivered the “impact” Roseman wanted which is far more important than the fantasy numbers.

NO SLAY ZONE

When Aaron Rodgers was with the Packers, the four-time MVP generally made life miserable for the Detroit Lions. Having said that, the superstar quarterback was always aware of his surroundings and tended to steer clear of Darius Slay. 

Old habits die hard because current Green Bay QB Jordan Love stayed left-handed for most of Friday night’s game. The Packers targeted Slay just one time in the passing game and instead focused on rookie Quinyon Mitchell, who spent the entire game outside the numbers against a group of talented playmaking receivers.

Love went after Mitchell 10 times, completing five of them for 86 yards. Decent production but Love’s passer rating when targeting the talented rook was just 56.3, according to TruMedia. That's certainly a more-than-acceptable performance for a rookie who has a very high ceiling.

"My coach told me pregame, on the first drive, they’d be testing me," Mitchell noted.

The test was passed.

FIELD FOLLIES

Hopefully, Love will be OK after a scary leg injury late in the game. NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero noted that initial tests indicated that Love’s ACL was intact but an MRI will tell the tale when he gets back to Green Bay.

The field condition was atrocious with dozens of players, including Love, on skates at times for much of the night but the injury resulted from an awkward takedown involving Jalen Carter and Josh Sweat in what is still a dangerous game. 

The play was neither dirty nor did the result have anything to do with the admittedly terrible playing surface. 

The NFL should be ashamed of affecting its own product with an international money grab born out of a search of untapped markets due to squeezing every possible penny out of North America.

However, different turf on a typical NFL-level field like Lincoln Financial or Lambeau, stadiums that ironically use the same turf as Corinthians Arena, wouldn’t have helped Love in that same scenario. 

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