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Tim McManus, ESPN Staff Writer
You could feel the different pulls of legacy and family and team on Eagles running back Saquon Barkley as he stood at his locker, in a sea of cameras and reporters, and spoke about the organizational decision to end his pursuit of Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record.
His dad, Alibay, took the news the hardest. He had called Barkley on New Year’s Day to check on him and that’s when Barkley relayed the message that coach Nick Sirianni would share with the public the following day: The Eagles planned to rest their starters in the regular-season finale against Barkley’s former team, the New York Giants, so they could be fresh for the playoffs, leaving Barkley 100 yards shy of hallowed ground.
“[My dad] definitely wanted me to play. Selfishly for him, you’ve got to think about it. However long, if it took a year if I broke it for someone to break it or another 40 to 50 years, our last name would have been attached to it,” Barkley said. “I see it from that side, too. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is winning football games, and he’s the one that raised me to be all about the team. So, he can have his little selfish moment, but he’ll get over it.”
Barkley has not been shy about his personal goal. After a training camp practice in August, not long after leaving New York for the rival Eagles on a three-year, $38 million free agent contract that the Giants showed no interest in matching, Barkley said plainly: “I want to be the best of all time.”
He took a big swing by putting together one of the best seasons by a running back in NFL history in 2024, now just the ninth player to reach 2,000 rushing yards in a season.
Becoming “2K Sa” — the nickname Barkley posted on social media shortly after hitting the mark against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 17 — was hard-earned. The Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, native went from high school backup to Penn State star to the Giants’ No. 2 overall pick. There were Pro Bowls and peaks but also contract squabbles and losing seasons and crushing injuries, most notably a torn right ACL he attributes, in part, to running angry to silence his doubters — an experience that shaped his approach to his MetLife Stadium return in late October.
He knows what went into this climb and, as a student of the game and running back history in particular, understands what it would have meant for his place in NFL annals if he had eclipsed Dickerson.
But Barkley also knows he quickly endeared himself to a new locker room by humbling himself and prioritizing his teammates, most publicly by turning down the chance to set a personal best in single-game rushing yards against the Giants, telling Sirianni he’d rather see “the young guys eat.” It’s those types of gestures that made a lasting impact at his previous stops, such as the time he won a gold medal in the 100-meter finals for Whitehall High School and then gave it to a girl from another school who had her medal taken away because of a timing malfunction. Or at Penn State when he’d tip the waitress every time a fellow student/fan sent him a drink when he went out, despite his best efforts to tuck himself in a back corner and not draw attention.
He’s also mindful of those who helped elevate him, including a running backs coach who delivered a well-timed confidence boost; a top-tier offensive line and star skill players such as A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Jalen Hurts who sacrificed gaudier statistics (and Pro Bowl nods) to allow Barkley to shine; his inner circle led by fiancée Anna Congdon, who aided Barkley in climbing the stairs when his knee was torn and his signature massive quads “shrunk down to the size of a [small] person’s” as he taught himself to walk again.
“You go through stuff, whether it’s injuries or contract negotiations, stuff that I didn’t even realize at the time was weighing on me more than I thought because I was always trying to be this superhero and this tough guy,” Barkley told ESPN. “It’s not easy to fight battles on your own. It’s easier to do with help and it’s important to surround yourself with a great team. I think you see it now, as a player I’m able to be on a great team and you’re able to see what type of player I am. And that works in life, too.”
Flowing both from Barkley and toward him, the theme of the season has been putting the greater good above self, which makes it fitting that the regular season ended with Barkley on the sidelines, a football field’s length from history but focused on what the Eagles hope is a title run, starting Sunday against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC wild-card round (4:30 p.m. ET, Fox).
“That’s what I tell my family,” Barkley said. “We didn’t come here and I didn’t sign here to break Eric Dickerson’s record. We came to win a Super Bowl.”
EAGLES RUNNING BACK coach Jemal Singleton jokingly calls his meeting room “The Dungeon.” It’s a small, windowless space on the first floor of the practice facility in South Philly, tucked next to the weight room. The walls are thin enough that when the defensive players are in there lifting weights, the music they blare comes through loud and clear. There’s some workout equipment, a whiteboard and a horse-shaped money bank where the players put cash in throughout the year when they feel inclined, which they’ll use to aid the homeless around Christmas. Otherwise, the room is pretty empty.
It’s here that Singleton decided to have his one-on-one with Barkley after training camp, sensing his star back needed some positive reinforcement.
Singleton has been coaching since 2000, in the NFL since 2016. Barkley remains the No. 1 back he has evaluated — a talent who can “shake” and “break” away from defenders, possessing the rare blend of size and speed, power and agility, smarts and instinct.
Barkley, though, was coming off a very public split with the Giants as captured by HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” complete with general manager Joe Schoen detailing the reasons it was imprudent to pay Barkley big money and then calling Barkley to tell him to test the market — a stance Barkley later called a “slap in the face.” That was the end of a long, unfruitful contract dance that extended over two offseasons. Whispers followed that the 27-year-old back had lost a step — whispers that reached Barkley through his phone.
“Saquon has a high confidence in himself. He knows what he is capable of,” said James Wah Jr., a longtime friend of Barkley’s and member of his management team. “But when you go through different injuries or you see little murmurs on social media, it kind of gets into your head a little bit and you kind of have to snap yourself back into reality and show yourself who you are and why you’ve gotten to this point.”
Singleton had gotten to know Barkley over the course of the spring and summer, and felt he could use one of those pep talks.
“I put myself in his shoes. You basically had your whole, somewhat, life portrayed through a phone call on TV and everybody is talking about it,” Singleton said. “How would I feel going through that situation? Out of place. Maybe you feel a little bit like you were discarded by a team that drafted you and all that.
“That’s a tough thing to kind of go through. And I really just felt I needed him to know the confidence I had in him and who I thought he could be as a player and who I thought he was as a player. And I literally just told him that: ‘Hey, you’re the highest-rated player I ever evaluated. If I got to pick who my No. 1 back was, it was you. And now I’m fortunate enough to work with you in this room.’ He just needed that.”
“That was big,” Barkley said. “Definitely helped my growth and set the season off right in having a positive mindset. From that moment on, we were able to get things rolling.”
Even premier athletes need to be built up from time to time. Whitehall High School athletic director Bob Hartman recalls whenever Barkley would get called into his office, he’d ask: “What did I do wrong?”
“You don’t ask that question if you don’t have some self-doubt,” Hartman said, “but he has absolutely overcome that.”
Such blips were no match for Barkley’s ability on the field. He was a reserve as a sophomore behind Wah, who was a senior at the time. But Wah was dealing with a high ankle sprain that sidelined him from time to time, opening the door for Barkley.
“He would get splashes of carries and you could see little glimpses of his greatness, and it was like, ‘This kid’s a stud,'” Wah said. “He’s like 5-7, maybe 160 pounds soaking wet with bricks in his pockets. He was smaller but he was so smooth. It was like poetry in motion on the football field.”
Those splashes developed into a wave as his time at Whitehall went on. A precursor to Barkley’s reverse leapfrog over Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback Jarrian Jones in early November, Hartman recalled a game where Barkley hurdled a defender who was standing straight up.
“He did some amazing things,” Hartman said. “We thought he was ‘Lehigh Valley good.’ But to think nationally good was pretty crazy.”
It finally sunk in during Barkley’s senior season in a game against Nazareth Area High School. Barkley had committed to Penn State by that point and coach James Franklin was in attendance to watch his future star.
Hartman was standing on the sidelines with Franklin and said: “‘Alright, you can stop all the BS. He’s going to Penn State. He’s locked in. It’s not changing. How good is this kid?’ And he said, ‘Bob, based on his first five weeks of film, he is one of the best running backs in the country.’ And it was like, ‘Wow, OK. We never really put him on that level.'”
Barkley went on to become the Nittany Lions’ all-time leader in all-purpose yards (5,538), total touchdowns (53) and rushing touchdowns (43) before being selected by the Giants No. 2 overall in the 2018 NFL Draft.
THE WEEK OF his much-anticipated return to New York in mid-October, Barkley said he knew better than to seek any “f you moments” against the Giants.
The last time he did that was Week 2 of the 2020 season against the Chicago Bears. He was coming off a 2019 campaign that was slowed because of an ankle injury and he was stymied by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2020 opener, finishing with 6 yards on 15 carries. He began to press.
“I was out there trying to prove everyone wrong, the media, everyone was talking crap about me,” he said. “God works in mysterious ways. He definitely humbled me there, and I won’t let that happen again.”
Barkley pounded the turf after being driven out of bounds by Eddie Jackson after a bull-like run that resulted in a 6-yard gain. He had torn his ACL. Barkley called the time immediately after the injury “probably the weakest moment of my life.”
“I was at his house the day after the injury happened, and I saw how down he was,” Wah said “But I also saw the switch flip. The ‘so what?’ ‘now what?’ mentality that he has. He just would not allow himself to be denied.”
Barkley said he liked the idea of breaking the rushing record against the Giants, not out of revenge but because doing so against the people who helped him would bring things “full circle.” He specifically mentioned the “trainers and coaches and strength guys who I put through hell” during his recovery.
He began working with EXOS trainer Nic Hill after that injury through a connection with then-Cleveland Browns receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who was recovering from a torn ACL at the same time.
As Barkley’s health improved, Hill saw him put up numbers that made him “an outlier among other outliers.” EXOS has a high-tech squat machine with an air compression system that measures power outputs and velocity. Where elite athletes were generating around 3,000 watts on a 300-pound squat, Barkley’s was closer to 4,500 watts, Hill said. On laser-timed sprints of 10 and 20 yards, he was reaching speeds of 22.5 miles per hour.
The biggest alpha moments came when the “fantasy football team” assembled last summer, a training group that included Barkley, Deebo Samuel Sr., DeAndre Hopkins, Beckham, Christian Kirk and Calvin Ridley.
Whether completing a lift or a run through the timing gates, each athlete called out their results, challenging the next in line to top it.
“He is the most competitive person in every single training session, and he does it in a way where he’s able to push everyone around him,” Hill said of Barkley. “S— talking is probably the wrong way to put it, but it’s some of that. It’s more of just get-people-going type of energy and he brings people with him.
“He’s always up there in all the numbers, and so he sees a number and he’s talking s— to everyone else like, ‘I’m the fastest person out here, and I weigh 20 more pounds than you.'”
BARKLEY’S NEW TEAMMATES on the Eagles got a taste of that competitive fire early.
Quarterback Tanner McKee got a firsthand glimpse in Florida after OTAs when a group of players gathered for a throwing retreat assembled by Hurts.
“We were playing elimination or lighting or whatever that basketball game was, and I won the first two,” McKee said. “And he comes over and looks me in the eyes and is like, ‘I promise you, you will not win the next one’ because he was so frustrated he wasn’t winning. The next one I did not win, so he held true.”
There’s a basketball hoop in the team meeting room at the Eagles’ practice facility, and when there are a few minutes to spare, Barkley will have guys line up to shoot, with 10 push-ups on the line for those who don’t find the bottom of the net.
“He loves arguing, like debate-style,” Jordan Mailata said. “‘Bring your arguments, have facts, have links and then we can talk.'”
But it’s Barkley’s softer touch that has helped him assimilate so quickly.
This photo of Saquon & the O-Line is everything to us 📸 pic.twitter.com/EUZcoQAjlg
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) December 29, 2024
The bigger gestures certainly help — such as teaming up with Hurts to buy the entire offensive line custom golf carts — but it’s the smaller ones that have built equity over time. Such as how he played golf and went out to eat with anyone willing during the offseason; the way he raced down the sideline in Los Angeles to celebrate fellow back Kenny Gainwell’s first touchdown of the season; when, after his triumphant return to MetLife, he invited anyone within earshot on the bus to a late-night dinner in Philly, on him; the way he has credited the offensive line for every accomplishment during this historic run; or how he expressed genuine surprise upon learning Grant Calcaterra‘s touchdown against the Carolina Panthers was his first because he’s “such a stud.”
“I feel like ever since Saquon has been here, he’s just like everybody’s biggest fan in a way,” Calcaterra said.
The affection he has garnered in return can be seen hanging on the back wall of the locker room in the NovaCare Complex. Barkley has gotten so many accolades this year that they’re spilling out of his locker. That includes framed pictures from the team commemorating signature performances.
“He’s got more frames than the f—ing national art gallery,” Mailata said. “He’s just been leaving them around.”
The collection spilled into the offensive line’s territory in the back of the locker room so the big men decided to have some fun with it. Led by guard Landon Dickerson, they hung a pair of those pictures on the back wall of their den, just under the black couch where Mailata strums his guitar. They placed tape underneath the pictures and wrote “Our Savior” below one and “The Chosen One” below the other.
“The guy does great things,” Dickerson said. “His work ethic. How he is as a person. I mainly did it as a joke because he had so many of those pictures of great moments in the games and they were just kind of getting thrown everywhere.”
But the message is pretty clear.
“The guy just felt like he was a part of our team the whole time,” Mailata said. “He’s not the first [we’ve blocked for], he’s not going to be the last, but I think it’s pretty cool that someone of his caliber, he’s the first of his caliber that we’ve had the honor of blocking for. I think it’s pretty humbling on both sides that we can recognize each other’s strengths and how special of a player he is. We’re a part of his success and we take pride in that.”
HARTMAN WAS IN attendance the day Barkley reached 2,000 yards — his first in-person game since Barkley joined the Eagles — along with his son, his dad, and one of his best friends.
“I caught myself choking up a little bit, I’ve got to be quite honest with you,” said Hartman, who had once hired Barkley as a babysitter for his kids. “It was pretty awesome. What an unbelievable accomplishment he worked so hard for.”
Wah was in a field suite for 2K, and had a “perfect view” to see the milestone run and the way teammates swarmed Barkley amid “MVP!” chants from the crowd. “I was elated,” Wah said.
Afterward, Wah joined Barkley at Barkley’s house with a small group that included Anna, their kids Jada and Saquon Jr., and Barkley’s parents, Alibay and Tonya. Jada and Saquon Jr. ran to their father at the door to greet him. They relaxed and played board games for a while, Wah said, until Barkley eventually went downstairs for a round of Call of Duty before calling it a night.
Barkley, a wine connoisseur, said he opened a bottle of Caymus to mark the achievement. But there was little else that night that reflected anything out of the ordinary.
“We just hung out, ate some pizza,” Wah said. “He didn’t eat any pizza, but he brought some home for everybody else. After going for 2,000 yards, he was thinking of the family.”