Despite a boffo rookie season with the New York Giants in 2019, Philadelphia Eagles superstar running back Saquon Barkley missed four games with a high ankle sprain. His second season as a professional ended with the six-foot, 233-pound running back being carted off the field. The diagnosis was he had torn his anterior cruciate ligament. That ended his season after only two games and only 25 rushing attempts.
In 2021, he missed four games after suffering the fourth ankle injury of his career. Then, he sat out three more games last year. He also battled similar sprains in two of his seasons at the collegiate level while playing at Penn State with the Nittany Lions.
Fast forward to the present. The fear of injury was at the forefront of the conversation as he and head coach Nick Sirianni kept the lines of communication open and determined to play him on Sunday against the New York Giants and risk injury wasn't in the best interest of the franchise.
Much was at stake as the Eagles made one of their most important decisions all season.
Perhaps you have heard? Saquon Barkley was chasing Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record. If anything tragic were to occur, an unnecessary injury to Barkley would cripple the Eagles' Super Bowl aspirations.
Make no mistake about it. Barkley has shown fans everywhere that he is the best at his position and in top physical shape this season. He seems obsessed with putting the injury concerns in his rearview mirror. During Philly's win over the Dallas Cowboys, he eclipsed 2,000 yards rushing, making him the ninth player in NFL history to do so.
He also eclipsed 100 yards rushing for the 11th time this season. There's one more thing we've been monitoring though. He has carried the ball 345 times and racked up 378 touches.
That's far above his previous career highs with the Giants. He tallied 295 rushing attempts in 2022 and stacked 352 touches in 2018 and 2022.
“I work really hard in the offseason,” Barkley recently told reporters. “As the game goes on, guys should be getting stronger. I should be able to impose my will on the defense. I’ve been training like that for a long time.”
The Giants let him walk during the offseason. Many saw that as disrespect, and whether he admits it or not, we believe he intended to show his former team’s leadership and the rest of the league that Big Blue made a terrible mistake.
What do we make of the risks and the asterisk everyone wants to place beside Saquon Barkley's potential record?
Claiming the NFL's single-season rushing record vs. his former team would have been a storybook finish to the regular season. It's also a nice poke in the eye for his former team and an Eagles rival.
But, Eric Dickerson can rest easy. Philly determined his run at history wasn't worth the risk of injury and damaging the Eagles' chances at a Super Bowl win.
Barkley needed 101 yards to eclipse Dickerson’s current record (2,105). That has stood for 40 years, Some say an asterisk should have been attached to the record if he's successful because Dickerson broke the record in 15 games (and added to his mark during a 16th week of action). Barkley, on the other hand, would have taken 17 games to set the new standard.
To that, we say this. How come no one ever discusses Dickerson needing an extra game to pass O.J. Simpson in the record books? We could argue his current standard should carry an asterisk too because O.J. set a record playing in 14 games.
Also, if we're being technical, Dickerson carried the rock 379 times in 1984, and Saquon, stacking 345 carries this season probably would have broken Eric's record by carrying the ball fewer times,
Here's something else of note. Simpson averaged 143 rushing yards per game in 1973. Dickerson averaged 131 yards per contest. Barkley would have averaged just under 124 yards per game if he ended his season having rushed for 2,106 yards.
So, what decision will the Eagles make?
Barkley said he left the decision on whether to play Sunday or not in the hands of Nick Sirianni. "Whatever his decision is, I'm all for it," Barkley told reporters. "If his mindset is, we'll go out there and try it, I'll go out there and try it. If his mindset is, let's rest and get ready for this run, I'm all for that, too.”
Coach Sirianni told reporters after the Eagles beat Dallas in Week 17 that he has a tough decision to make.
“We’ll see,” he said. Nick loves maintaining a competitive advantage, but he has given us his answer well before Sunday. He was never going to make everyone happy, but time will tell if he has made the correct decision. We'll revisit this again after the postseason.