Saquon Barkley Is Superman Again
Saquon Barkley ran for 255 yards on Sunday as his Philadelphia Eagles cruised to a 37-20 victory over the Rams. The New York Giants, Barkley’s former team, had 245 yards total in their tank-tastic loss to the Buccaneers. In fact, over the Giants’ last two games, they’ve put together only 243 rushing yards, still fewer than Barkley had all by himself last night.
Is this entirely fair to the Giants? No, not really. Is it funny? Yes, extremely so.
The cruel irony here, of course, is that the Giants let Barkley—their former first-round draft pick and erstwhile face of the franchise—walk away this offseason for nothing in return. Most of the saga played out on HBO’s Hard Knocks, putting New York’s organizational ineptitude on display for all the world to see. Barkley was on the record, several times, about his desire to be a Giant for life. That went out the door when he signed a three-year, $37.5-million deal to go elsewhere. The fact that he landed an hour south, with division rival Philadelphia no less, only twisted the knife deeper. Somebody get Giants owner John Mara, last seen on Hard Knocks mentioning that he’d have trouble sleeping if Barkley went to the Eagles, the world’s biggest dose of melatonin.
Now, with Barkley leading the NFL in rushing and scrimmage yards—well on his way to an All-Pro nod, a playoff berth, and maybe even some MVP votes—he’s reminded not just the Giants but the entire football world that he’s unbelievably nice with it.
Barkley, whose face is currently splashed all over the NFL’s official Twitter page, set the Eagles’ all-time record on Sunday with his 255 yards on the ground. The Rams had no answer for the superhero wearing Philly’s no. 26 jersey, who showed up ready for business in his best Paul Smith suit. By the end of his big night, he not only had the Eagles’ franchise mark, he also had the ninth-most rushing yards in a single game in NFL history. In his first 11 games with the Eagles, Barkley has amassed 100 yards from scrimmage in nine of them. He has five games with multiple touchdowns, averages an NFL-best 6.2 yards per carry, and could very well end the regular season with the most yards and touchdowns in the league.
What we’re witnessing here is living proof that sometimes you have to leave the past behind in order to fully actualize, not unlike Shohei Ohtani departing the Angels for the Dodgers and immediately winning the World Series. The Eagles still have a long way to go before entertaining serious championship thoughts, but with Barkley beasting like this, it’s obvious they have a player capable of doing things the rest of the league cannot.
The most bonkers thing about Barkley, though, is that he just had a game with two 70-yard touchdown runs and it’s not even the most notable thing he’s done this year. That honor will always go to the famed backwards hurdle, the most tangible evidence we have yet that Saquon Barkley is composed of different atoms and particles than the rest of us.
Any time you can make other world-class professional athletes react like they’ve just seen a ghost—and get immortalized in Madden because of it—that’s a pretty good sign that you’re operating on a higher plane of existence. The stats support that, too, as Barkley has already eclipsed the numbers he put up during his best seasons with the Giants, and he’s still got six more games to play.
“My story’s not finished,” Barkley told The Athletic after de-horning the Rams. “It’s gonna keep going.” In that same article, his Eagle teammates were asked to put Barkley’s lights-out performance into words. “You can’t,” guard Landon Dickerson responded. “It’s my first time being around an athlete like that,” said cornerback Isaiah Rodgers. “Everything he does is shocking to me. […] I’m just enjoying the show right now, just like everybody else is.” That sound you just heard in the distance is still-inebriated Philadelphians cackling maniacally, right beside everyone who drafted Barkley in fantasy football this year.
At this point, Barkley hitting 2,000 rushing yards—something only eight guys have ever done in over a century of NFL play—is very much a possibility. Some of the names on that list include Eric Dickerson (the prototypical running back), Barry Sanders (author of maybe the greatest highlight reel of any modern athlete), Adrian Peterson and Derrick Henry (mutants put on earth to run the damn ball), and Chris Johnson (who I’m still convinced is the fastest man to ever live). Barkley, who cuts like scissors through wrapping paper and has the acceleration of a Maserati, would fit right in with those giants of the game. (No pun intended.)
