How the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni, Jalen Hurts, and Kellen Moore cost Saquon Barkley the rushing record
The quarterback runs too much, which takes away carries from the backs and puts him at risk — the key factors in Barkley's failed pursuit.
If you want someone or something to blame for Saquon Barkley’s failure to break Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record, look no further than the coaches and the quarterback.
Eagles coaches love to have Jalen Hurts run on purpose. They call designed runs for him all the time. Hurts loves this. Hurts thinks he’s born to run.
They’re wrong. No NFL quarterback should ever run the ball unless absolutely necessary. It shortens careers and risks injury. You might not know that Hurts is, for the fifth season out of five, missing time with an injury, usually incurred while running. Hurts suffered a concussion in the first quarter of the Eagles’ loss at Washington two weeks ago. He missed last week’s game against the Cowboys and remains in concussion protocol.
It was inevitable. Hurts this season has run 150 times for 630 yards. That’s the most rushing attempts by any quarterback, including Jayden Daniels and Lamar Jackson, who happen to be better at it.
He suffered the concussion in the same manner he suffered a shoulder sprain in December 2022 in Chicago — on a designed run in a game that had minimal playoff ramifications, given the scenarios involving other NFC teams. This was back when Sirianni was more involved with play-calling. Now, offensive coordinator Kellen Moore operates with greater autonomy, but Sirianni reviews game plans and holds veto power on the sideline.
Hurts is a strong, tough football player. He’s also smaller and slower than the men chasing him, and he neither is built nor trained to take the punishment a of running back.
But this isn’t about player safety or QB preservation. Not entirely. It’s about The Record.
Pragmatically, there’s no universe in which 101 of Hurts’ rushing yards should not have gone to Barkley.
There is a reality in which Barkley already has the record. Any controversy regarding whether he should play in the meaningless finale against the Giants on Sunday would have been rendered moot.
(To be clear, the controversy is entirely contrived and any argument to the contrary absurd: No significant player with meaningful games remaining should ever play in a meaningless NFL game.)
However, the Eagles continue to believe that Hurts needs to run to be effective, and for them to win. This, with one of the greatest running backs in the history of football in the same backfield as said quarterback. This, with the best wide receiver tandem they’ve ever had. This, with the best offensive line in football.
If you need Hurts’ legs to matriculate the ball down the field on a team that features Barkley, DeVonta Smith, A.J. Brown, Dallas Goedert, Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, and Cam Jurgens, then you need to be in another line of work.
» READ MORE: Eagles’ Landon Dickerson wants Saquon Barkley to pursue Eric Dickerson’s rushing record: ‘That’s a fairy tale ending’
The wear-and-tear story gets worse. Hurts has played one fewer game than Daniels and Jackson. They average 1.8 and 2.4 yards per carry more than Hurts does.
You might argue that Hurts’ rushing numbers are padded because the Birds so often use the quarterback sneak, or Tush Push, on which Hurts has scored 11 of his 14 rushing touchdowns, not to mention their proclivity to use the same play on their relatively frequent fourth-and-short attempts. So what. You think these plays don’t hurt, too? You think there’s no risk for injury in the midst of 5,500 pounds of other angry men?
There is a perception that Barkley benefited from the threat of Hurts’ ability to run; that defenses directed resources at Hurts that better freed Barkley. The theory is if Hurts stopped running, then Barkley would be more easily stopped. I agreed.
That argument held water ... until Hurts got injured. I know, I had a hard time believing it, too.
In slightly more than seven quarters of play behind Kenny Pickett and Tanner McKee, Barkley gained 280 yards on 56 carries and scored two touchdowns.
Defenses couldn’t stop O.J. and Sweetness and Barry Sanders in their primes, and Barkley is just as good as any of them, and he is in his prime.
So much for pragmatism. On a more theoretical note:
If Hurts were healthy, I believe Sirianni would let Barkley and the other offensive starters play at least the first half of the finale Sunday to chase the record.
However, Pickett still has injured ribs, and McKee has never started a game.
Further, Barkley spent his first six seasons with the Giants, torched them for 176 yards and a score in his return Oct. 20, and this week starred in a series of sleep-aid commercials produced solely to mock Giants owner John Mara, who told his front office that Barkley’s landing in Philadelphia via free agency would cost him sleep. The Giants would be out for blood.
Still, if Hurts were healthy, I have little doubt that Sirianni would give Barkley a modulated chance. After all, in 2021 he let Smith break DeSean Jackson’s rookie receiving record in a meaningless finale against the Cowboys on the eve of a playoff road game.
Apparently, after losing Brown for the playoffs in the 2023 season finale that meant next to nothing, Sirianni appears to have learned his lesson. Even Sirianni can see that, without Hurts, the risk of playing Barkley and other starters Sunday outweighs even the reward of immortality.
Because nobody’s ever going to come close to this record again.
Unless it’s Saquon, next year.