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With a third of the 2024 NFL season officially in the books, if you can believe it, the Philadelphia Eagles can officially start to evaluate Saquon Barkley as a member of the team.
On paper, he's a Week 2 catch away from an A+. He's currently on-pace for the most rushing yards of his career, has been an effective player in the receiving game – minus that one play – and has been the best pass blocker the Eagles have employed in forever, which, all things considered, is saying something.
Discussing his perspective on Barkley as the Eagles prepare to face off against his former team, the New York Giants, for the first time this year, Nick Sirianni celebrated what the PSU product has brought to the table, as he's provided some truly impressive plays for the Eagles over the past six weeks.
“Any time you have a big time running back like that, you always think about how you’re going to get the guy the football. It’s never like, ‘Hey, well, in this place we ran this, and in this place we ran this, and this is what our system is.’ You do everything you can do to get players the ball and do things that they do well,” Sirianni told reporters.
“That’s the focus of any coach: What do our players do well, and what can we do with them? Obviously, we’ve looked at the [running] backs that we used in the past and how we’ve used them in the past, from our different teams and even different teams here. But then, you also study some other teams. What does Team A or Team B do to get their running back to the ball? And again, it’s all about fitting the skillset of your players. Fortunately for Saquon, I don’t think there is anything he doesn’t do well. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast, and he’s ultra quick. That’s what you look for in any running back.”
While the Eagles have found plenty of success over the past few years with a variety of different running backs under center, as they haven't had a true “franchise” running back in the Sirianni-era, none have produced at the same level as Barkley, who has recorded 25.7 percent of his yards after contact over the last five games. If the pride of Penn State can just stay healthy down the stretch, he might finally get to do some damage in the postseason for only the second time in his NFL career.
Saquon Barkley has changed the way opposing teams play the Eagles
Has Barkley's effectiveness changed the way opposing teams have played the Eagles, maybe stacking the box with extra players to slow down the run? Sirianni touched on that, too, noting that when opposing teams cue in on Barkley, he has to make adjustments to attack other areas of the field.
“Any time you have unique players, a good attack on offense, you’re going to get different things than you see on tape. We expect that,” Sirianni noted.
“We’ve had a good running game here for a while, so you see different things. That’s been evident of our teams throughout my whole time here. So, when that happens, you have to be ready to adjust. Hey, the plan said to do this. Well, sometimes the plan changes. You have to be ready to adjust with your answers that you have while still doing what your players can execute well.”
In Week 6, the Cleveland Browns really leaned in on stopping Barkley from beating them on the ground, limiting him to a season-low 47 yards on the ground. Fortunately, even when Barkley wasn't getting much going on the ground, Jalen Hurts picked up the slack through the air, picking up 264 yards and two touchdowns as a passer with a completion percentage of 64. So yeah, even when Barkley isn't producing on the ground, he's still impacting the game.
