Saquon Barkley: A Tale of Two NFL Cities

It is the best of times for Saquon Barkley and the Philadelphia Eagles. On Sunday night in Los Angeles, the Eagles won their seventh straight game and have established themselves as the main rival to the Detroit Lions in the NFC.

For Barkley, he became just the 12th player in NFL history to top 300 yards from scrimmage in a game (255 rushing, 47 receiving). His 255 yards on the ground was the ninth-,highest single game total of all-time, and he is on pace to break the single season record for rushing yards and total yards from scrimmage.

Eric Dickerson rushed for 2,105 in 1984 (a 16-game schedule), and Barkley is on pace for 2,151. In 2009, Chris Johnson had 2,509 yards from scrimmage, and Barkley is on pace for 2,548.

Less than 100 miles up I-95 lies East Rutherford, New Jersey, and there it is the worst of times. Barkley still has six games to play, and already he has a career-high 1,392 yards rushing. Barkley is averaging 126.5 yards rushing per game, and his former team, the New York Giants, are rushing for 115 yards per game.

Barkley has scored 12 touchdowns this season, and the Giants as a team have scored a total of 17. The Eagles are an ascending power in the NFC, and the Giants are scraping the depths of rock bottom.

Running Back as MVP?

There was a shift in NFL MVP voting just over a decade ago. In 2012, Adrian Peterson won the NFL MVP award as a running back, rushing for 2,097 yards that season. Peyton Manning had 4,659 yards and 37 touchdowns that year, but Peterson won the award by a comfortable 11 votes.

The next running back to truly have a huge season was Derrick Henry in 2020, when he also broke the 2,000-yard mark at 2,027 yards. But not only did he fail to win the MVP that season, he didn’t even get a vote. In fact, since Peterson received 30 votes following the 2012 season, all running backs combined have 16 total votes.

Unofficially, the MVP award has become a quarterback award. But why not Barkley in 2024? Has anyone changed the fortunes of a team more than him? Has any non-quarterback elevated a team more in one season?

Let’s remember where the Eagles finished the 2023 season. They limped into the playoffs with losses in five of six games – including a 27-10 fall to the Giants in Week 18. Then they were humiliated by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Wild Card. In that loss, the Eagles rushed for a total of 42 yards. On Sunday, Barkley had two touchdown runs of 70 yards.

When the season began, Barkley was +17500 to win the MVP award, and those were the shortest odds for any running back. Now those odds are down to +500, and Barkley has moved all the way up to third on the odds board, trailing Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson.

The Eagles have also seen their Super Bowl fortunes change in large part because of Barkley. After the Detroit Lions at +275 and the Kansas City Chief at +475, the Eagles are third at +600 to win Super Bowl LIX. When the season began, the Eagles were +1400.

New York Implosion

If you’re a Giants fan, you are grateful for Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets. They are taking much of the media’s attention, and the total failure of the Giants is getting lost in the Rodgers drama.

However, what’s happening with the Giants may be even worse. Just two years ago, New York won a playoff game – something the Jets haven’t done in 14 years. For all of the trouble with Rodgers, the Jets have paid him less money per year than what the Giants were paying Daniel Jones, who they have now cut.

Jones was 3-13 in the 16 starts he made since signing his four-year, $160 million contract in early 2023. Less than two seasons into that contract, they’ve parted ways.

The over/under on wins for the Giants in 2024 now sits at 3.5. This will be the seventh season in the last eight that New York finishes with at least 10 losses, and if the Giants do move on from head coach Brian Daboll, they would be hiring a fifth new head coach since Tom Coughlin left in 2015.

As things sit today, the Giants would have the No. 2 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.