The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 23–19 in the NFC Wild Card game at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday, eliminating the NFL’s defending Super Bowl champions.
The game turned on a late go-ahead touchdown from Christian McCaffrey, and several stalled Philadelphia drives in the second half, with Jalen Hurts’ final pass falling incomplete on the Eagles’ last possession.
Philadelphia’s offense struggled to sustain drives throughout the game, and a sideline altercation between A.J. Brown and Nick Sirianni drew attention.
Saquon Barkley carried the load with 106 rushing yards on 26 carries, but San Francisco’s situational defense ultimately sealed the win.
After the game, Barkley accepted responsibility for the collective offensive failure, expressing frustration with a season-long issue.
“Yeah, super confident we would. We just didn’t. Right now we should be frustrated. We should feel pain. The season is over,” Barkley told reporters. “But I guarantee we will go back and watch the film. It’s a common theme — stalling out drives.”
“It’s easy to point the finger at one person. But internally, we didn’t do enough as a collective,” Barkley added. “I will own up to it first. I take full responsibility. I didn’t make enough plays. All of us. We’ve gotta be honest with each other. That’s the truth. We were searching all year to get this thing going. We just didn’t.”
In 2025, Barkley finished the regular season with 280 carries for 1,140 rushing yards (4.1 yards per carry) and seven rushing touchdowns, while adding 273 receiving yards and two receiving scores.
It marked a significant drop-off from Barkley’s historic 2024 campaign, when he rushed for 2,005 yards on 345 carries (5.8 yards per carry) with 13 touchdowns in 16 games, becoming just the ninth player in NFL history to surpass 2,000 rushing yards in a season.
Including the playoffs, Barkley set the NFL single-season rushing record with over 2,500 yards, earned AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year honors, was named a First-Team All-Pro and Pro Bowler, and emerged as the central figure in Philadelphia’s Super Bowl run.
Barkley signed a two-year, $41.2 million extension with the Eagles in March 2025, while Hurts remains under his five-year, $255 million extension signed in 2023, which runs through the 2028 season.
Brown, meanwhile, is under a three-year, $96 million extension that keeps him on the roster through 2029, while DeVonta Smith signed a three-year, $75 million extension in April 2024 that also runs through 2028.
Given those contract structures, the Eagles’ core offensive group remains under team control for multiple seasons.
As a result, while roster turnover is always possible through trades or cap-driven decisions, a wholesale offensive overhaul before 2026 would require significant and deliberate transactions.