Saquon Barkley will be sent off the court by the New York Giants this summer. Now the running back is really turning up the heat. A scene of his is already causing huge waves on the Internet.
Jalen Hurts just smiled and basically took the next touchdown for granted. 72 meters further ahead, Saquon Barkley played the air guitar and celebrated his next big entrance. The running back of the Philadelphia Eagles almost single-handedly made it 37:20 against the Los Angeles Rams and is now even appearing in the NFL MVP discussion after his next outstanding performance.
He ran for 255 yards, scored two touchdowns and caught four passes for an additional 47 yards. In total he had an absurd 302 yards. The best football league in the world has not seen such performances for a long time – not even from Derrick Henry. Linebacker Jared Verse from the Los Angeles Rams admired his opponent: “I have never seen a running back like him.”
Barkley on the way to the MVP title?
In the win over the Jacksonville Jaguars (28:23), the 27-year-old even caused fans on social media to completely freak out with an acrobatic offensive move. The veteran, who came to the Eagles from the New York Giants, left his opponents standing and then jumped over his 1.83 meter tall opponent Jarrian Jones – backwards.
Barkley has been unstoppable for weeks and is rolling over opponents in rows. In 11 games this season, he has already set his best yardage total with 1,392. That’s significantly more than 100 yards per game and is therefore outstanding. The ten touchdowns are also strong. But Barkley is also repeatedly fed passes by playmaker Hurts and has collected another 257 yards and two touchdowns.
In the past six years with the New York Giants, the 27-year-old had provided such highlights much less often – although he played anything but badly. However, he was never able to fully show his potential due to his weaker teammates and the weak quarterbacks. He missed almost all of 2020 with a torn cruciate ligament
In 2018 he was selected second overall in the draft. There were huge expectations associated with it. Barkley was supposed to be the next big sports superstar in New York. But he didn’t become one for these reasons.
The Giants’ confidence in the beefy running back was obviously waning. The franchise decided to pay the now released Daniel Jones massively before the 2023 season after the former first-round pick played big (by his standards) in his final contract year in 2022. Looking back, that was a serious mistake.
NFL: Giants let Barkley go voluntarily
To make matters worse, his expensive contract probably played a decisive role in the Giants not extending running back Saquon Barkley’s contract in 2023. Those in charge had underestimated Barkley’s market value – as well as his role in the success of Jones and the Giants.
“You don’t pay the guy $40 million to hand the ball off to a $12 million back. This is the year for Daniel,” general manager Joe Schoen explained in the offseason, and it was filmed for the documentary series Hard Knocks – and went more viral with each week, with each poor performance from Jones.
To make matters worse, Barkley is now playing even bigger for his big rival, the Philadelphia Eagles, than he already did during his six years in New York. Schoen’s statements increasingly became an own goal.
The Giants bosses will be even more annoyed if Barkley now gets the ultimate reward: the MVP title. Since Adrian Peterson in 2012, no player at his position has been named the most valuable player in an NFL season. Barkley, however, is moving further and further forward in the debate.
It would be a huge success for Barkley. This is also because the running backs are getting less and less trust and are hardly able to get longer contracts.
On average, they only manage to stay in the league for three years. Now in year seven, Barkley is proving all the bosses wrong.
