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NFL in review: Saquon Barkley’s monster game highlights Week 11; winners and losers

Notes, quotes and next week's NFL and top college point spreads.

Giants rookie Saquon Barkley ran for a career-high 142 yards on Sunday. He makes his Lincoln Financial Field debut as a pro when New York visits in Week 12.
Giants rookie Saquon Barkley ran for a career-high 142 yards on Sunday. He makes his Lincoln Financial Field debut as a pro when New York visits in Week 12.Read moreBill Kostroun / Associated Press

It doesn't get any easier for the Eagles run defense.

After Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara combined to run for 174 yards, the Birds next challenge is Giants rookie Saquon Barkley.

New York (3-7) was a laughingstock for two months, but have now won two in a row. And with the NFC East having more dogs than a kennel, even Big Blue thinks it still has a shot.

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Barkley on Sunday had career highs of 27 carries for 142 yards and two touchdowns as the Giants outlasted the Buccaneers, 38-35.

>> READ MORE: Eagles can't stop the run (or much of anything) on Sunday

"We've got a long way to go, there are a lot of things we've got to get better at, but if we can just keep battling and fighting, who knows?" coach Pat Shurmur said. "That would be a fun thing for everybody to write about."

Shurmur, a former Eagles assistant who coached the last game of 2015 when Chip Kelly was fired, is 13-30 as a head coach. This will be his first at Lincoln Financial Field as a head man. The Eagles opened as 5.5-point favorites. (More lines below.)

Five of the Giants seven losses this season have been by one possession. A Week 6 loss to the Eagles (34-13) wasn't one of them. Barkley was the few productive Giants in that game with 130 yards rushing and another 99 receiving.

Barkley (1,268) is now second to Todd Gurley (1,390) in yards from scrimmage.

"We're finishing games and we're finishing drives," the rookie from Penn State said, "and that's what we weren't doing in the first half of the season."

Around the league

Winners

• Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson won his first career start in place of injured Joe Flacco. Jackson had 19 passing attempts and 27 rushing attempts. Baltimore is 9-2 after its bye under John Harbaugh.

• Andrew Luck had his seventh consecutive game of at least three touchdown passes in Indy's rout of Tennessee, which lost quarterback Marcus Mariota to an elbow injury at the end of the first half

• The Cowboys have gotten themselves back into the NFC East hunt with their second consecutive road win on a field goal at the buzzer to beat Atlanta. Haven't seen every throw Dak Prescott has made this season, but he feathered a pass to Cole Beasley that went for 19 yards on the final drive.

>> MARCUS HAYES: Well, New Orleans is a good place for a funeral …

Losers

• The Eagles 48-7 defeat at New Orleans is the largest losing margin for a defending Super Bowl champion.

>> SAINTS 48, EAGLES 7: Birds embarrassed in worst loss in more than a decade

• The Redskins fell at home to the Texans and lost starting quarterback Alex Smith to a broken leg. It was as gruesome as Joe Theismann's, which happened 33 years ago to the day. Washington now turns to Colt McCoy.

>> NFC EAST: Alex Smith breaks two bones in leg in Redskins' loss

• Just when we were starting to take the Chargers seriously, they blow a 19-7 second-half lead to the 3-6 Broncos and lose on a last-second field goal.

He said it

• "I played with him so long, he's like a brother. To see him go down and suffer is like, 'Why not me? Maybe I should suffer and let him continue to go out there and do his job and help this team win.'" – Redskins tight end Vernon Davis after teammate Alex Smith's season-ending broken leg

• "It brought back vivid memories. The irony of today is just hard to believe." – Joe Theismann, who was at the Redskins-Texans game

• "Put him on defense. See if he can cover." – Fox analyst Troy Aikman after Eagles punter Cameron Johnston made a physical tackle on Alvin Kamara

>> JEFF McLANE: Eagles vanish on the field and then in the locker room

• "Lindsay said he and Freeman get into some deep conversations about life insurance. That's the first time in all my years of production meetings that any player has ever brought up life insurance." CBS announcer Ian Eagle talking about the relationship between Denver running backs Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman

• "Some people would think this is nuttier than squirrel droppings." – NFL Red Zone host Scott Hanson on Carolina's decision to go for two rather than kick the game-tying extra point with 67 seconds left. Carolina did not recover the onside kick and Detroit took two knees to end it

• "It was just a dumb play by me. I turned around and saw my guy [Larry Fitzgerald] on the ground. We're not coached to that. We're not taught that. They didn't bring me in here to do that, and it was stupid. I cost us the game." – Cardinals tight end Jermaine Gresham who committed an unnecessary roughness penalty late in Arizona's loss to the Raiders

>> GRADING THE EAGLES: Pass offense, run defense earn 'F'

Did you notice?

• Not only was it 33 years to the day when Theismann broke his leg in 1985, but the Redskins beat the Giants, 23-21. When Smith broke his leg on Sunday, the Redskins lost to Houston, 23-21.

• Saints wide receiver Keith Kirkwood had three catches for 33 yards. Kirkwood, an undrafted free agent from Temple, played in just his second career game after being promoted from the practice squad.

• Von Miller sacked Philip Rivers for the 16th time in his career, but his third-quarter interception turned the game around. Miller's only other career pick came in 2012 off Tampa Bay's Josh Freeman.

• Chances of making the playoffs when you are 4-6, like the Eagles are, are 7.5 percent.

• Eight tackles and another interception for Dallas rookie linebacker Leighton Vander Esche. That guy is a stud.

• Nice comeback by Bears kicker Cody Parkey in Sunday night's win over Minnesota. Parkey hit all three of his field goal attempts, including a clutch 48-yarder with less than three minutes left in the 25-20 win. Parkey missed four kicks last week, all improbably hit the uprights.

• The Bears and Vikings scored 25 of the game's 45 points in the final 8 minutes, 30 seconds of the fourth quarter. The consensus over/under on VegasInsider.com was 44. That's either a great win or a really bad beat.

• The only player with more rushing attempts than Lamar Jackson (27) was Leonard Fournette (28). Fournette's a running back, Jackson is a QB.

• Jackson's Ravens teammate, running back Gus Edwards, came out of nowhere to rush for 115 yards against the Bengals. Edwards, an undrafted free agent out of Rutgers, had 64 rushing yards in four previous career games. Edwards, a 23-year-old from Staten Island, spent his first four college seasons at Miami before moving up to Rutgers as a grad transfer.

• Andrew Luck is 10-0 in his career against Tennessee.

• Panthers rookie D.J. Moore (Imhotep) had his best game of the season with 7-157-1. Moore's eight targets also were a season best. He had an 82-yard reception, but was caught by Darius Slay before he could score.

• The Bengals streak of three consecutive games allowing 500+ yards ended Sunday. The held the Ravens to 403 yards; the first time the Ravens cracked 400 since Week 5. Cincy has dropped four of the last five.

>> READ MORE: With Wentz struggling, offense goes from underachieving to inept

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>> INJURIES: Jones, Douglas Maddox go down; Birds might need roster move