SPORT NEWS: NFL Week 11 takeaways: Saquon Barkley elevates Eagles to legitimate Super Bowl contender.giang

It’s Week 11 of the 2024 NFL season. And as playoff races heat up, this week’s slate is replete with matchups that will have a major impact on how those races shake out.

The first game of the week was a battle in Philadelphia for first place in the NFC East between the upstart Washington Commanders and the Eagles.

The Commanders have been one of the biggest surprises in the league this year, and Jayden Daniels and Co. could have taken over first place in the division with a win.

However, Eagles running back Saquon Barkley had other ideas: 198 of them.

Sunday features some major matchups as well. In Pittsburgh, two heated rivals will duel for first place in the AFC North when the Baltimore Ravens take on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Later that day, two of the league’s best quarterbacks will duke it out in Buffalo when Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs travel to take on Josh Allen and the Bills.

The week closes out with a battle for Texas between one team whose playoff aspirations have been dinged in recent weeks and another whose postseason hopes have been completely immolated.

It’s a week that will have a major impact on division races across the league. And Bleacher Report NFL analysts Gary Davenport, Kristopher Knox, Maurice Moton and Brent Sobleski are here to break it all down, with the biggest takeaway from every game in Week 11.

The Detroit Lions are considered by most to be the front-runners in the NFC. They have earned that status. They are lethal on offense, physical on defense, and they have just one loss.

However, after watching the Philadelphia Eagles handle the Washington Commanders 26-18 on Thursday night, two things became clear.

The first is that when the Eagles are firing on all cylinders, they are capable of beating any team in the league—handily.

The second is that the best way for the Philly offense to fire on all cylinders is to make running back Saquon Barkley the centerpiece.

The Eagles certainly aren’t lacking for talent offensively. Jalen Hurts is one of the most explosive dual-threat quarterbacks in the game. There aren’t many teams with better one-two punches at wide receiver than A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. Dallas Goedert is arguably a top-10 tight end. Philly’s offensive line is as good as any in the league.

The addition of Barkley has taken the Eagles to a new level offensively, though.

The two-time Pro Bowler gashed the Commanders for 146 yards on the ground on 26 carries, including the touchdown that blew the game open.

He also caught two passes for 42 more yards. On a night when Hurts and the passing game were just OK, it was Barkley who carried the Eagles to their sixth straight win with two touchdowns and 198 total yards from scrimmage.

Philly isn’t without issues—the team has a penchant for starting slow and then exploding in the second half. But the pass defense that unraveled the 2023 campaign is vastly improved, and the Eagles were already stout up front.

There hasn’t been a more impactful free-agent addition in 2024 than Barkley, because he may just carry the Eagles back to the Super Bowl.

The Washington Commanders have been one of the biggest surprises in the NFL this year.

And while the play of rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels has drawn most of the attention, head coach Dan Quinn believes the offense is only scraping the surface while offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury and the signal-caller get more comfortable with each other:

“I’ve found out the competitor that he [Kingsbury] is and the detail that he wants to get to with the group. And we’ve got, we think a lot more under the hood, about where we can develop and how far we can take it. And Kliff’s a really big part of that. He’s got incredibly high standards for the group. He’s got a very creative mind. So, to think that all of our playbook has been seen, you would be mistaken.”

That offense hit a snag Thursday night, though. And for the second straight week, Daniels looked less superhuman and more like a rookie quarterback.

The Philadelphia Eagles took Terry McLaurin and Washington’s wide receivers out of the game completely, and the LSU product struggled as a result—less than 200 passing yards, three sacks and an interception.

Of course, we need some context here. Even after the loss, Washington is 7-4—a record no one expected it to have after 11 games. Daniels is all but certainly going to be the Offensive Rookie of the Year. The future is as bright in the nation’s capital as it has been in a long time.

However, for the second week in a row, the Commanders were tested by a Super Bowl contender. For the second week in a row, they failed.

The Commanders are a good football team. Probably a playoff team.

But they’ll need to focus in the offseason on hanging with the big boys, because they aren’t there yet.

Here’s a look at the rest of the Week 11 slate.

Sunday, November 17

• Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears: 1 p.m.

• Jacksonville Jaguars at Detroit Lions: 1 p.m.

• Minnesota Vikings at Tennessee Titans: 1 p.m.

• Las Vegas Raiders at Miami Dolphins: 1 p.m.

• Los Angeles Rams at New England Patriots: 1 p.m.

• Cleveland Browns at New Orleans Saints: 1 p.m.

• Indianapolis Colts at New York Jets: 1 p.m.

• Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers: 1 p.m.

• Atlanta Falcons at Denver Broncos: 4:05 p.m.

• Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers: 4:05 p.m.

• Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills: 4:25 p.m.

• Cincinnati Bengals at Los Angeles Chargers: 8:20 p.m.