Saquon Barkley went from being part of a New York Giants team that posted double-digit losses in five of six seasons from 2018-23 to winning Super Bowl LIX in his first season with the Philadelphia Eagles.
While the narrative has been that Barkley holds a grudge against the Giants, who chose not to match his three-year, $37.8 million deal with the Eagles — a negotiation which was showcased on HBO’s “Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants” — the superstar running back expressed how it’s more like the opposite.
“That clip [of the Giants moving on from Barkley] doesn’t really display my relationship I have with that organization from top to bottom. They’re the people that brought me in. After the game, so many guys and people from the organization reached out to me and were super happy,” Barkley said on Tuesday’s edition of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” “One, for my birthday, and to see me hold that Lombardi Trophy up because they know the hard work that I put in.
“That clip is in the past, and I’m happy to be an Eagle. I look at it as like Marshall Faulk — one of my favorite running backs — he played for the Colts, but he’s remembered as a Ram. Now I’m just trying to be remembered as an Eagle.”
Barkley, who turned 28 on Super Bowl Sunday, had a historic 2024 season with the Eagles.
Rushing for 2,005 yards and 13 touchdowns on 5.8 yards per carry in the regular season, he became just the ninth player in NFL history to eclipse 2,000 yards in a single season. He then rushed for 499 yards and five touchdowns on 5.5 yards per carry in Philadelphia’s four postseason games, with three of those scores going for at least 60 yards.
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Barkley rushed for just 57 yards in the Super Bowl, his second-lowest mark of the season. Granted, he also had 40 receiving yards and Philadelphia still dropped 40 points on the Chiefs.
Barkley rushed for 255 yards in a Week 12 victory over the Rams, the ninth-most rushing yards in a regular-season game in NFL history. He then rushed for 205 yards against the Rams in the NFC divisional round, the fifth-most rushing yards in a postseason game in league history. In all, Barkley set the NFL record with 2,504 combined rushing yards (regular season plus postseason) in a single season.
Across his six seasons with the Giants, who selected him with the No. 2 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft out of Penn State, Barkley rushed for 1,000-plus yards three times, had two seasons with 10-plus rushing touchdowns, 91 receptions in his 2018 rookie campaign and was the 2018 Offensive Rookie of the Year. The Giants made the playoffs only once with Barkley, in 2022, when they lost to the Eagles in the divisional round.
Barkley missed 24 games due to injury from 2018-23, but he still ranks fourth in Giants history with 5,211 rushing yards and tied for sixth with 35 rushing touchdowns.
A one-time All-Pro and three-time Pro Bowler, Barkley helped the Eagles win their second Super Bowl in franchise history, the other coming in the 2017 season.
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