NEW ORLEANS — In a season full of record-breaking feats, Saquon Barkley had one last mountain to climb Sunday at the Superdome.
He celebrated his 28th birthday and his first Super Bowl appearance by breaking the 26-year-old record of Terrell Davis, who rushed for a total of 2,476 yards between the regular season and playoffs with the Denver Broncos in 1998.
Barkley, who earlier this week was named the Associated Press offensive player of the year, entered Sunday needing 30 yards to pass Davis for the single-season record — when combining the regular season and playoffs — from 1998. Unlike many of his games during his dominant 2024 season, it took Barkley a little while to get those 30 yards. It was almost halftime before Barkley beat the record.
Barkley took a handoff on the final play of the first half for two yards to up his total on the night to 31. The Eagles led, 24-0, at the break, en route to their 40-22 Super Bowl victory, and at that point of the game his best plays were picking up blitzes as a blocker — like when he protected Jalen Hurts from a blitz on a go ball to Jahan Dotson that set up the first Eagles score — or simply being used as a decoy. Barkley rushed 11 times for 29 yards on the first five Eagles possessions.
It was all the same to the Eagles, who were content to beat the Chiefs in whatever way they needed to. In most games this season, in The Year of Barkley, that has mostly been with Barkley running the ball and the top-ranked defense doing its part.
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The Eagles got the latter on Sunday night, but Barkley finished with just 57 yards on 25 rushing attempts. His presence was all that mattered. One of the greatest seasons in Eagles history will be remembered in large part because of all the things Barkley did and the records he chased.
Barkley wasn’t given a chance in Week 18 to run down Eric Dickerson’s regular-season record of 2,105 yards set in 1984. Barkley topped the 2,000-yard mark — becoming the ninth player in NFL history to do so — during the Eagles’ Week 17 blowout win over the Dallas Cowboys. The Eagles rested Barkley and many starters in their meaningless season finale the following week, Barkley saying then he was fine with the decision because the Eagles had bigger goals to chase.
“I want a banner up there,” he said. “I think we all do.”
Mission accomplished.
Dickerson was open about not wanting Barkley to break his record, but Davis admitted his record was one that didn’t get the same kind of publicity and, thus, wasn’t one he was necessarily married to keeping forever.
“No one talks about my record,” Davis said in an interview with The Inquirer last month. “But nah, I’m good. There’s really no reaction to it. Let’s say he gets close, and he breaks it, or whatever, … at least I can show my kids, ‘Hey, man, at one point, I had the record. At one point, your dad was OK.’”
Barkley’s arrival in Philadelphia, behind one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, helped power an Eagles offense that needed a jolt in 2024 after last season’s collapse. He set the franchise’s single-season rushing record and became the single-game leader, too, when he ran for 255 yards in a 37-20 road win against the Los Angeles Rams on Nov. 24 — the seventh in a 10-game winning streak that Barkley had a big hand in, going over 100 yards seven times with seven rushing touchdowns.
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Barkley signed a three-year, $37.75 million deal in the offseason after the New York Giants let him walk in free agency, a decision that ended up playing out publicly on HBO’s Hard Knocks, in which owner John Mara said he would have trouble sleeping if Barkley ended up on the Eagles.
The Giants’ loss was the Eagles’ gain.
Barkley’s impact was felt instantly. He scored three touchdowns — two on the ground, one through the air — in a season-opening win over the Green Bay Packers in Brazil. He then broke a 65-yard touchdown run on the Superdome field to get a scoreless Eagles team on the board early in the fourth quarter in a Week 3 win over the Saints.
The Eagles flipped to a run-first team following their Week 5 bye after spending their off week evaluating what was going wrong during their 2-2 start to the season. Part of that transformation involved Barkley’s offensive linemen going to Nick Sirianni to let the coach know that the best path forward was to give Barkley the ball and let them block for him. Barkley spent the majority of the next dozen games building an MVP case as the Eagles, behind a ground-first attack and the league’s top-ranked defense, built a Super Bowl case.
He then helped them reach the game’s biggest stage.
Barkley rushed for 119 yards in a wild-card round win over Green Bay. He topped the 200-yard mark with two touchdowns the following week, including a 78-yard dash in the snow that will be near the top of a reel of his many highlights from this Eagles season. In the NFC championship game, he scored three times on the ground and finished with 118 yards in a blowout.
And on Sunday, he added another bullet point to his record-breaking season. He didn’t fill the stat sheet, but the Eagles still danced with the one who brought them.