There’s no denying Saquon Barkley’s greatness.
There’s no denying he salvaged his career by signing with the Philadelphia Eagles this year – or, said differently, by escaping the New York (Little?) Giants. There’s no denying we’re all being treated to appointment football now that he’s been granted deserved prime-time stages – starting with his Eagles debut in South America (of all places) in Week 1 to his pair of marquee performances over the past 12 days – worthy of transcendent abilities that were compared to the (nearly) incomparable Barry Sanders’ when Barkley came out of Penn State in 2018.
But should he be the NFL MVP in 2024? Gotta deny him that one.
It’s perfectly understandable to link him to the league’s premier award for football excellence – though no running back has won it since 2012, Adrian Peterson the only runner so honored in the past 18 years. Yet to watch Barkley follow up his scintillating Week 11 showing, when he broke the Washington Commanders by incinerating their defense multiple times in the fourth quarter, to his tour de force Sunday night – a career-best (and club record) 255 rushing yards and more than 300 overall in front of a national audience is the stuff of legends (and bronze busts) – begets debates, shifting betting odds and plays into our (temporary) obsession with the shiny object du jour.
Even Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay fueled the discussion following his team’s 37-20 defeat.
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“He’s as good as there is as a slash runner, to be able to work edges and then be able to erase angles and be able to finish,” he said after watching Barkley render LA’s late-game defensive gambles oh so pointless.
“That’s why he had the production that he had, and that’s why he’s had arguably an MVP-type of season so far.”
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said of No. 26: “He’s got everything you look for in a back. He’s been awesome, and he was awesome tonight.”
Maybe, at some point, Barkley’s candidacy becomes undeniable. With the benefit of the 17-game regular season, he’s on pace to do what Peterson couldn’t quite manage 12 years ago – namely, break Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards, set over 16 games in 1984. Barkley is on pace for 2,151, and the Eagles (9-2) might need him for all 17 games in a bid to overtake the Detroit Lions (10-1) in the race for home-field advantage and a first-round bye in the NFC side of the playoffs.
However I’ve already taken my deep breath since watching Barkley as Hollywood’s leading man for a night.
Again, the guy is awesome. The production, reliability, the humble attitude, breakaway speed, ankle-breaking cuts, the reverse hurdle – it’s precisely the type of package we crave in our sports stars. And it sure feels like Barkley has made the Eagles better.
But they’ve also made him better. Waaaaaay better.
Philadelphia is riding a seven-game winning streak and trails only the Lions in the NFC. Conversely, over the past three seasons, this is the Eagles’ worst 11-game start (they were 10-1 in both 2022 and 2023, when Barkley was still toiling in Gotham).
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All due respect to Shady McCoy, Brian Westbrook, Wilbert Montgomery and others, Barkley is probably the best back the City of Brotherly Love has called its own since Hall of Famer Steve Van Buren delivered the first two of the franchise’s four titles three-quarters of a century ago. (And all due respect to Van Buren – he scored the only points in a blizzard in the 1948 title game and ran over the Rams for 196 yards in the ’49 championship round, LA apparently a historical feeding ground for Philly backs – but I’d take Barkley.)
Yet let’s remember that the true MVP(s) of the Eagles are almost certainly the five men doing the primary blocking for Barkley, symphonic mauling conducted by legendary offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland. This was a unit that paved the way for Miles Sanders, Barkley’s backup with the Nittany Lions, to rush for 1,269 yards in 2022, after which he signed a hefty contract with the Carolina Panthers … and hasn’t been heard from since. This was a group that helped D’Andre Swift craft his only 1,000-yard season in the NFL last year before he joined the Chicago Bears. This is a quintet known for giving rise to the notorious “tush push” – the Philly frontal assault that produces first downs and touchdowns in short-yardage situations practically without fail.
Even following the retirement of iconic center Jason Kelce – after a 2023 campaign that ultimately disintegrated with something akin to a locker room mutiny as Sirianni knee-capped his staff on the fly – Stoutland somehow seems to have made the front five better. Cam Jurgens has capably replaced Kelce. Following Barkley from New York, Mekhi Becton – a first-round washout as the Jets’ left tackle – has reinvented himself by taking over the right guard spot vacated by Jurgens and, along with Jordan Mailata, gives Barkley a pair of 360-pounders to run behind. Per the NFL analytics website PFF, Mailata is the league’s preeminent left tackle. Left guard Landon Dickerson is likely headed to his third straight Pro Bowl, and right tackle Lane Johnson might be a first-ballot Hall of Famer whenever he’s done.
Now it’s Barkley, averaging nearly 50 rushing yards more per game than he did during his time with the Giants, who is the beneficiary of this steak-and-cheese grinder that routinely pulverizes opponents into submission.
I was able to witness the formula personally as the Eagles relentlessly pummeled the Commanders. Barkley was steady, if fairly unspectacular most of that night at Lincoln Financial Field – until the dam broke and he ran for a pair of touchdowns covering 62 aggregate yards in a 20-second span in the game’s final five minutes. He wound up with 198 yards from scrimmage.
Chicken? Egg? Hammer? Scythe? Line? Barkley?
“We’ve found a rhythm offensively,” Johnson told me when I asked about their approach and success.
“We love the big, explosive plays. We love handing the ball to Saquon and wearing teams down physically up front. When you can do that, it opens up the pass game, weakens the pass rush when you attack the guys the way that we do. So, complementary football.”
And Barkley is a complementary piece here. That’s not to shade him one iota of the credit he’s due, but …
For some reason, quarterback Jalen Hurts still does most of the short-area dirty work, eight of his 11 team-leading TD runs from 1 yard. (Barkley’s TD runs average 31 yards – amazing, including two from 70+ against the Rams – but he hasn’t taken it in from the 1-yard line yet.)
Call it a quirky stat if you like, but the Eagles are 8-0 when Pro Bowl wideout A.J. Brown is available yet 1-2 without him. And Barkley dropped a very catchable pass in Week 2 against the Atlanta Falcons that he himself cited as the reason Philadelphia lost.
A defense teeming with blossoming stars – one that fell apart and maybe even quit in 2023 following the departure of coordinator Jonathan Gannon for the Arizona Cardinals’ top job – is now ranked No. 1 overall with grizzled assistant Vic Fangio calling the shots.
Even Sirianni seems to have gotten out of his own way sufficiently enough that his job status is no longer a weekly discussion point. And say what you want about the polarizing HC, but he does have a highly enviable 43-19 regular-season record and is on the way to his fourth playoff appearance in four seasons – most of that success obviously predating 2024.
Barkley is a superstar, a unicorn at his position, probably an eventual Hall of Famer. He’s an eminently valuable player for the Eagles.
He’s also a tailback playing for a team that might have been one questionable holding call away from beating the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 57 less than two years ago … without him.
With most profuse apologies to Mr. Barkley, the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen, Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson and maybe even Detroit’s Jared Goff should probably rest rather easy – none of those teams likely to survive without their respective quarterbacks, whereas the Eagles have already proven to be championship-caliber pre-Barkley. In a quarterback-driven league that tends to appropriately reward that all-important position, one of them probably will – and should – be the 2024 MVP.
Sorry, Saquon.
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Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Nate Davis on X, formerly Twitter, @ByNateDavis.