PHILADELPHIA − The euphoria was building throughout Lincoln Financial Field.

The Eagles were throwing the ball deep, and mostly completing them. DeVonta Smith had a 52-yard reception. Saquon Barkley had a 47-yard touchdown catch.

And the Eagles had a two touchdown lead over the Denver Broncos in the fourth quarter.

Then it all fell apart in an avalanche of inept offense, ill-timed and costly penalties, and porous defense. All of which was enough for the Broncos to come back from a 14-point deficit to take a 1-point lead on a gutsy decision to go for a two-point conversion midway through the fourth quarter.

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The Eagles couldn’t recover and fell 21-17 on Oct. 5. It was their first loss of the season after four straight wins, and they only have themselves to blame.

The Eagles committed 9 penalties for 55 yards, less than Denver’s 12 for 121. But they happened at the worst possible times, like Zack Baun’s unnecessary roughing call that gave Denver a first down with about two minutes left, allowing them to drain the clock and force the Eagles to use timeouts.

There was Saquon Barkley’s illegal shift penalty earlier in the quarter that negated a fourth-down conversion to the Denver 30. Instead, the Eagles had to punt.

So when the Eagles’ final desperation drive ended on Jalen Hurts’ incomplete pass into the end zone with 4 seconds left, the Eagles could only blame themselves. That, incidentally, came one play after the Broncos were not called for pass interference on a pass to Dallas Goedert to the Broncos’ 3 yard line, despite plenty of contact.

“I think certain things don’t get you until they get you,” Hurts said.

Added Baun: “If you make mistakes, and you’re habitually making mistakes, then they’re going to come back to bite you in the butt. If we don’t get those corrected, it’s going to hurt us, and today it did.”

Hurts threw for a season-high 280 yards on 23-for-38 passing, but the Eagles hardly lit up the scoreboard. And then they went cold.

Denver took advantage on Bo Nix’s 11-yard TD pass to Evan Engram with 7:36 left. Instead of kicking the extra point to tie the game, the Broncos boldly went for 2 and got it on Nix’s pass to Troy Franklin for an 18-17 lead.

“That’s kind of Sean Payton’s thing,” Baun said. “He’s aggressive. And we knew that coming in.”

Here are 4 takeaways from the Eagles’ mind-numbing loss to the Broncos:

Saquon Barkley’s big TD, big penalty, but no carries

The formula was simple last season. The Eagles would get a lead in the second half, then give the ball to Barkley to run the clock out. But for the second straight week, Barkley was a non-factor in the second half − other than his 47-yard TD catch early in the third quarter.

Barkley did have his best game of the season as a runner in terms of yards per carry. But he only had 6 carries, for 30 yards. He had just 1 carry for 0 yards in the second half. In all, Barkley had just 9 touches.

“I really don’t know what people want,” Barkley said. “If I touch the ball too much, sometimes we’re not throwing enough. We throw it too much, and I only have 9 touches, and it’s like … I’m not in the business of ‘What are we doing enough?’ I’m in the business of winning football games, and we didn’t win the football game.”

Barkley has just 267 yards rushing this season through five games, well off his pace from last season when he had 2,005 yards rushing.

It was also Barkley’s penalty for an illegal shift that hurt the Eagles. They faced a 4th-and-4 from the 49 when Hurts, under an all-out blitz, lofted a pass deep that DeVonta Smith caught at the Broncos’ 20. But the play was negated by Barkley’s penalty, and the Eagles punted with 5:00 left.

“On that play, I definitely wasn’t (detailed) enough,” Barkley said. “I don’t know if they said someone else was moving, too. We weren’t detailed on a lot of things in that game. On that play, I gotta own it. I gotta be better in that situation, especially with Smitty making a big play there.

Big penalty by Zack Baun is costly, too

The Eagles continued to hurt themselves with bad penalties. Late in the fourth quarter, the Broncos were a yard short of a first down on Bo Nix’s pass to RJ Harvey. But Zack Baun hit him late and was whistled for unnecessary roughness.

That gave the Broncos a first down at the Eagles’ 14 just before the 2-minute warning. That enabled the Broncos to run off another minute off the clock to kick a field goal while forcing the Eagles to use their remaining timeouts.

The Eagles had just 1:11 left to go 75 yards with no timeouts.

“Short-yardage situation, he was fighting for extra yards, and we’re taught to cap off in those situations,” Baun said. “I didn’t think he was down. One ref threw the flag, and it was a subjective penalty, I think.”

Can the offensive line stay healthy?

The strength of the Eagles’ offense is the line, with All Pros and Pro Bowl players at four of the five positions. Yet for the third straight game, at least one key player has left the game with an injury.

This time, it was left guard Landon Dickerson, who suffered an ankle injury in the first quarter and didn’t return. Dickerson was selected to the Pro Bowl in each of the previous three seasons.

In the two previous games, it was right tackle Lane Johnson with a stinger and a shoulder injury.

You can make a case that much of the Eagles’ woes offensively is because they aren’t at full strength. Dickerson had knee surgery in August, yet still made it back in time for the season opener. But Dickerson has also had surgeries on both ankles during his college career.

Brett Toth did a decent enough job replacing Dickerson. But it’s not nearly the same. Just like it hasn’t been in the previous two games when Fred Johnson replaced Lane Johnson.

It remains to be seen if Dickerson can make it back for the Eagles’ next game, in four days on Oct. 9 against the Giants.

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Za’Darius Smith, Azeez Ojulari make an impact

Za’Darius Smith was signed on Sept. 5, one day after the season opener. Yet through five games, he’s the only edge rusher with a sack. He has 1.5 after sacking Broncos QB Bo Nix in the first quarter.

Smith’s sack, for a loss of 13 yards, knocked the Broncos out of field-goal range, and forced them to punt rather than attempt a field goal that would have given Denver a 6-3 lead.

Ojulari, meanwhile, was the Giants’ second-round in 2021. He had 6 sacks last season for the Giants in 11 games. But Ojulari was not on the game-day roster for the first four games of the season. He was only added to the roster for the game against Denver because two edge rushers were placed on IR in the past two weeks in Nolan Smith and Ogbo Okoronkwo.

While Ojulari only played sparingly against the Broncos, he did register a QB hit on Nix late in the second quarter. Denver faced a 3rd-and-8 from their 38 when Ojulari hit Nix as he threw, thus forcing an incomplete pass and a punt.

Contact Martin Frank at [email protected]. Follow on X @Mfranknfl. Read his coverage of the Eagles’ championship season in “Flying High,” a new hardcover coffee-table book from Delaware Online/The News Journal. Details