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The Philadelphia Eagles are headed back to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years. Oddly enough, it will be a rematch against the Kansas City Chiefs, who they faced back in Super Bowl LVII. The Eagles will now look to capture just their second Super Bowl title ever. Philadelphia will have a new weapon this time in hopes of ending the Chiefs reign: Saquon Barkley.
It took until his seventh NFL season, but Barkley has finally achieved the stardom everyone thought he would have coming out of Penn State. The previous hiccups could only be accounted from two things: injuries and being drafted to the New York Giants.
It took a move from only a team like the Giants in order to make this all happen, though. New York decided to let Barkley, their best player, go to their division rival in the Eagles, who already had a stacked roster to begin with, during the offseason. The result seemed obvious, and sure enough it came true, with the Eagles now one win away from a Super Bowl title and Barkley looking like a favorite to win the league's MVP award.
Seasons like the one Barkley is about to wrap up just don't happen all that often, if ever. Considering the circumstances the 27-year-old has had to overcome to get to this point, there's room for argument that this is the best season for a running back in the history of the NFL.
Why would the Eagles let Saquon Barkley go to the Giants?
This is an excellent question, no? The Giants, who have been far from looking like geniuses over the last several years, have been given an exclamation point on their foolery with Saquon Barkley's standout season. It's not as if the New York brass, like general manager Joe Schoen, didn't expect their former first-round running back to be good still. They knew that, even Schoen acknowledged he was the team's best offensive player on Hard Knocks. What they probably didn't expect Barkley to do was have one of the best seasons by a running back in NFL history.
Obviously, Schoen and the Giants didn’t have any say-so where Barkley went once he hit free agency. However, the fact he even made it to the market was a massive blunder on their part. Him being quickly swept up by the Eagles only added to the sting. It proves that the Eagles, first and foremost, wanted to commit to Barkley, unlike the Giants. Secondly, it proves they wanted to win—something that seems to be undecided upon in New York.
But this entire situation is what makes this season by Barkley so incredible. Rarely ever would a team allow their best player, especially offensive, to hit free agency like Barkley did. Him ending up in the same division, on one of the best teams in the entire league, that just punched their ticket to the Super Bowl, only accentuates everything. That's simply not supposed to happen. And yet it did.
Can't deny the production, even without the record being broken
Once you get past the unlikeliness of Barkley’s arrival to Philadelphia, it’s then you can get into his production this season.
Barkley led the NFL in rushing this season by 84 yards—and that was with him sitting out the final regular season game of the season because the Eagles secured their playoff spot. His sitting, though, came much to the chagrin of Philadelphia fans. It was to the liking of Hall of Fame running back Eric Dickerson, however.
Dickerson is smiling because his 40-year-old single-season rushing record, where he ran for 2,105 yards, remains intact. Barkley, leading the league with 2,005 yards, needed just 101 yards to break the record. Considering he was averaging 125.3 yards per game against a Dallas Cowboys defense that was ranked 29th in the league in rushing, allowing opponents an average of 137.1 yards per game, that seemed more than feasible.
While sure, that's the what-if game, there's no denying how productive Barkley was this year. Only five games this season did he fail to reach 100 yards or more rushing. His performances have now carried over into the postseason where he's added on to his legacy-making season.
After Sunday's NFC Championship game against the Washington Commanders, Barkley has now rushed for 442 yards in the playoffs, which is 170 more than Buffalo Bills’ James Cook. That's because Barkley has been making home run touchdown runs all season long.
Breaking off another 60-yarder against the Commanders gave Barkley his seventh touchdown run of at least 60-plus yards this season. That combines a regular season and postseason record. His three in this year's playoffs gives him the most for any player in a single postseason.
Reviving the running back position
Some will argue that this one should go to San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey. While he definitely does deserve his own flowers for the season he had last season, Barkley’s run (no pun intended), felt different because of his past going back to how the Giants perceived him.
Remember, Barkley had struggled to find a solid footing in New York. In his six seasons there, he had just three 1,000-yard rushing seasons. He fell just shy in 2023 with 962 yards. The left the Giants and Schoen falling into the trap that the rest of the league was buying into in that the running back market had crashed and the wide receivers were the great commodity now.
Then what did Barkley do? He ran for the most yards of his career by nearly 700 yards, eclipsing 2,000 yards, having the best season for a running back since Derrick Henry in 2020.
Even Atlanta Falcons second-year running back Bijan Robinson acknowledged the importance of Barkley’s historic season after helping the Eagles beat the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Divisional Round, saying, “Man, Saquon, thank you for making us RBs look amazing. This position is looking great.”
The value and impact of Barkley’s season goes well beyond just stats; it may have just changed the way people look at the running back position. Or, just reminding them of how they used to look at them. That’s why Barkley’s season might just be the best ever.
