How a historic season from the ‘best running back to ever play this game’ led the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl

CNN —

Saquon Barkley leaps into the end zone and puts his hands to his face in a gesture of astonishment.

But there’s nothing to be shocked about. He’s been doing this all year.

Barkley’s celebration came after his third touchdown in the NFC Championship game, the penultimate score in a huge Philadelphia Eagles win over the Washington Commanders that saw them book their second Super Bowl spot in three years.

The 27-year-old began the game with an electric 60-yard touchdown run on the Eagles’ first offensive play before adding two more TDs as the game went on; he finished with 118 rushing yards off 15 carries as the Eagles ran in a Super Bowl-era postseason record seven rushing touchdowns.

In the three playoff games Barkley has played in this year, he has 442 rushing yards and five touchdowns on the ground.

His stellar postseason comes off the back of a record-breaking regular season in which he became just the ninth player to eclipse the 2,000 rushing mark, doing so without playing in Philadelphia’s season finale.

For a player who switched East Rutherford, New Jersey, for the City of Brotherly Love in the offseason, Barkley has been the jewel in the Eagles’ NFC crown and the engine of their winning machine this year, so much so that he was named as a finalist for this year’s NFL Most Valuable Player award.

While he’s not the favorite to win MVP – Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen and Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson are the front-runners – the nomination shows just how impactful he’s been, given Adrian Peterson was the last running back to win the award 13 years ago.

But after seasons of misery with the New York Giants and an acrimonious end to his time in New Jersey, this season has been a dream come true for Barkley with the Kansas City Chiefs standing between him and NFL immortality.

“I ain’t gonna lie. I tried to downplay it in my head, but it’s amazing, man,” Barkley told the FOX broadcast after Philadelphia’s win over the Commanders in the NFC Championship. “It’s amazing. We’re here. Super Bowl. But the goal wasn’t just getting there. The goal’s to win, and we’re gonna celebrate, enjoy this and get right back to work.”

Barkley (No. 26) has enjoyed a historic season and has helped lead the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl. Emilee Chinn/Getty Images

Homecoming

Perhaps we should have seen this record-breaking season from Barkley coming before it even started; the signs were all there.

He came in with a point to prove after being undervalued by the New York Giants – he told Dianna Russini in July on her “Scoop City” podcast that he was “a little fed up” with the negotiations between the two sides and that their decision to not present what he deemed an acceptable offer was “a slap in the face.”

His decision to switch NFC East teams – moving from the Giants to the Eagles – echoes back to his life journey, having been born in the Bronx before his family moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a few years later.

For Barkley’s former Giants teammate, Elijhaa Penny, the move to the Eagles came with plenty of personal benefits for the running back.

“When I first thought of it, I was like I feel bad for Saquon because I know he’s a loyal guy. He’s like one of those guys that, like, he’s kind of like, honestly Kobe (Bryant): he wants to play for one franchise, and create history with one single franchise,” Penny – who joined the Giants in 2018, the same year Barkley was drafted – told CNN Sport. “And I knew that’s what he wanted.”

“But (we saw) him land in Philly with a better situation with the offensive line, better front office, better management right now.”

With those motivational factors propelling him and a healthy offseason behind him – Barkley has battled injuries since being drafted – he was ready to flourish in Philly.

Through the first three games of the season, Barkley had 351 rushing yards and four touchdowns. But it was over a three-week stretch between Weeks 7 and 9 where his solid start became an offensive explosion.

It began with Barkley’s return to face the Giants for the first time in Week 7 when he repeatedly torched his former team on the ground – he finished with 176 yards and a touchdown off 17 carries – and was on course for much more heading into the fourth quarter. Microphones caught Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni asking Barkley if he wanted to keep playing in an attempt break his single-game rushing mark, but with the victory wrapped up, Barkley chose to let his teammates get some action.

And then two weeks later, Barkley set the NFL world alight during the Eagles’ narrow 28-23 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars with a reverse, no-look hurdle over a defender which Sirianni called the “best play” he’s ever seen. Oh, and he also ran for 159 yards, too.

Barkley's reverse no-look hurdle against the Jaguars was one of his highlight plays from his excellent first season in Philadelphia. Elsa/Getty Images

That three-week span encapsulated Barkley’s all-encompassing 2024 season with the Eagles; monster production running the ball highlighted with feats of athleticism rarely seen on the field. Between Week 11 and Week 17, Barkley surpassed 100 yards in every game except one – he even found time to break the Eagles’ franchise single-game rushing record with 255 yards against the Los Angeles Rams.

His special season was capped in Week 17 when he surpassed the 2,000-yard rushing mark and, although he fell just 101 yards shy of Eric Dickerson’s all-time single season record, Barkley’s debut campaign in Philly will go down in history as one of the best ever.

Barkley finished the season on 2,005 rushing yards, just 101 yards shy of Eric Dickerson's all-time single-season record. Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

And he has maintained that red-hot form in the playoffs, providing the key thrust to Philly’s offense when the passing game has stuttered and helping put the team within touching distance of a second Super Bowl victory – and fifth league title – in franchise history.

Remarkably, he’s even on course to break Terrell Davis’ single-season rushing record – regular season and playoffs combined – of 2,476 yards in 1998. With 2,005 yards in the regular season and 442 yards in the playoff, Barkley has 2,447 total yards meaning he needs just 30 yards to break Davis’ record.

Barkley’s displays have inspired awe across the football world, and that was no different after the dominant win over the Commanders.

“Speechless. The guy is special, man,” offensive tackle Jordan Mailata told NFL Network’s Stacey Dales afterward. “What else is there to say? The first play of the game, the guy goes out for 60 to the house. I’m trying not to swear right now.”

Eagles cornerback Darius Slay told former five-time All-Pro corner Richard Sherman on his podcast: “I was so excited that he scored (the 60-yard touchdown), but then again, I was so mad that he scored so fast, that we just had a 17-play drive like: ‘We finna send us back out there?!’

“Man, that man so good my homeboys used to have a little talk about running backs, I said: ‘Man, Saquon is that dude, man,’” Slay continued. “Like his career stats don’t say, but man, ain’t nobody seen no running back like this.”

Penny agrees, saying Barkley’s results this season are perhaps not so surprising given what he saw during their three years together with New York.

“Everybody saw it. We all knew it. We all saw it. Just in Philly, he’s got the right people around him, got the right personnel around him,” the former fullback explained. “And then they’re featuring in that offense through him. And anytime you can feature an offense around a running back that’s rolling this late in the season, your chances are very high in winning the granddaddy.”

Slay expressed a similar sentiment to Sherman, saying: “He could damn near rush for 2,000 (yards) every year behind this O-line. He is explosive, man. Like, seeing him in person now, every week? That’s a highlight reel.”

‘A generational guy’

When Barkley was drafted by the Giants in 2018 with the No. 2 overall pick out of Penn State, he arrived with a lot of expectations on his shoulders.

He had been a sensation at the collegiate level, setting multiple records for the Nittany Lions and finishing fourth in Heisman Trophy voting in 2017 – coincidentally, Penny’s younger brother Rashaad finished fifth and was also drafted in the first round of the 2018 draft by the Seattle Seahawks.

But arriving into a big market and with that pressure to perform on his shoulders, Penny didn’t see any signs of shying away from the spotlight from Barkley.

“I think that the pressure was something that he embraced. Even though we were having losing seasons, he would just still come to camp, come to training camp, prepared just as better than ever,” Penny, who was in his third NFL season in 2018, said to CNN.

“Each year, he’s just getting better. Like I said, I keep on harping on it – I just think that, like, his preparation and his mindset … (he can) do anything that he wants to do.”

As someone who shared a backfield with Barkley and was in running back meetings with him, Penny got a front row seat to see what has made him such an effective runner, something he’s tried to impart on the young, aspiring players he coaches now.

“Saquon’s a generational guy, so it’s kind of hard to mimic him or trying to be like him physically or athletically, right? The only thing I tell the kids about Saquon is just that his preparation and his competitiveness,” Penny said.

“Like: ‘Yeah kids, you might not be as skilled as Saquon, you might not be as big, as strong, as fast as him, but if you come and attack your day or your whatever you’re doing with his mindset and his preparation,’ that’s what I pretty much tell kids. Preparation and mindset, because there’s no way you can be like Saquon Barkley or play like him. He’s kind of like in a class of his own, but the preparation and the mental is something definitely that they can control, and that’s something that I preach to them about.”

While Barkley is one of just nine running backs to ever eclipse the 2,000-yard rushing mark, Penny isn’t ruling out Barkley becoming the first to do it twice in his career.

Penny also sees plenty of maturity from Barkley, with his experience in the league giving him the platform to be more productive with the ball in his hands and hit more regularly on those “home runs.”

And despite recognizing the pushback he might receive, Penny was adamant in where he believes Barkley ranks in the pantheon of great rushers.

The Eagles have relied on Barkley's running ability in their run to Super Bowl LIX. Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

“I think Saquon Barkley is the best running back to ever play this game,” he said emphatically. “And I know that it’s early in his career. I know that he’s in year seven. I know it’s still kind of like early.

“He’s not done yet. But when you talk about a guy that can do it all at the position – pass protection, catch the ball, run the ball – he checks all three boxes. Then you look at: ‘OK, can he hit a home run for me?’ The guy can go 80, 60, he can stretch the field however you want. Can he close the game out for me? He closed a lot of games out. Can he make the first person miss? Yes, he can.

“He just checks every single box that all the great running backs check. But when you talk about just the running style and the gracefulness of how he runs, there’s nobody in the history of the game – and I can say that confidently – nobody in the history of the game that’s like Saquon Barkley. So I’ll rank him No. 1 on my running back all-time list.”

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