Is this the week Saquon Barkley breaks off a huge run?
Is this the week Saquon Barkley breaks off a huge run? originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Through just two games, the 2025 season has been a bit more of a grind for Saquon Barkley.
The reigning Offensive Player of the Year has played well against the Cowboys and the Chiefs to help the Eagles get off to a 2-0 start, but he hasn't had a 100-yard game yet and he is averaging just 3.7 yards per attempt.
His longest run in 2025 is just 16 yards.
I'm not going to sit here and lie," Barkley said on Friday, I would rather 5 carries for 200 yards and 5 touchdowns. But the ones you gotta work for, that's kind of how life works and that's how football is.
We play in the National Football League. It's a hard league, it's a lot of talent and a lot of great teams and a lot of great coaches. That's why you train the way you train to be able to come up with those moments and to play in those types of games that you've got to grind it out and find ways."
That might all change this weekend as the Rams come to town.
In two games against the Rams last season, Barkley had 52 carries for 460 yards and 4 touchdowns. He also had three touchdown runs of 70+ yards against the Rams, including that picturesque 78-yard scamper through the snow in the divisional round win.
Earlier this week, Eagles offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo said the Eagles have been close on breaking a big run. Barkley agrees.
Yeah. We're definitely close," Barkley said. But again, it's Week 2, it's Week 3 now. I actually probably would be a little concerned if everything was firing at 100% and everything was going perfectly fine. That's not football, that's now how it works. There's development within a season, no matter if you have a lot of the same guys, it's a different team, obviously a different play caller.
But the beauty of that is not getting caught up in the BS that's outside this building and just focusing on us and trusting the process and things are going to come together. And we're going to have the performances we would like to have. But most importantly, just continue to win football games."
While Barkley's numbers haven't been eye-popping in 2025, he is playing really well. Barkley is ninth in the NFL with 148 rushing yards and has seen a stacked box (8+ defenders) on 37.5% of his runs. That's way up from the 20.6% he saw in 2024.
Just tough, gritty guy that at any point can hit a home run," head coach Nick Sirianni said. I think that's why he can make yards out of some times where the defense got our number on it. I respect that in any player that when it's a gritty, grimy game and you've got to make the plays that you make. Sometimes it's not even like, Oh hey, that was a four-yard run.' Sometimes it's like, Hey, it was a two-yard run, but it was a really good run.'
You just admire his mental toughness, you admire his [physical] toughness, you admire the offensive line's toughness and the offense's grit to push through those moments when you're grinding it out, but just happy he's on our team."
There can sometimes be some advantages to facing stacked boxes. Because if Barkley gets past the first level, there's no one to stop him. We saw that against the Rams last year as they tried to slow down the 2,000-yard rusher and failed twice.
The key, Barkley said, is to not force anything. The big runs are going to come eventually. Barkley has already touched 15 mph six times this season and eventually, he's going to break one.
The Eagles are confident in their run game.
We haven't had the glitzy glamor hundred-yard, whatever, the big pop runs that we've had," Patullo said. But if you look at the efficiency and what we asked him to do, especially to close the game out, run it out of backed up and have some crucial runs in times. We had that one drive where we got in a nice flow when he was running the ball good, we hit the screen and then we were able to score. I think we're moving in the right direction."