Eagles’ Saquon Barkley comfortable in his first day at camp: ‘It felt like we’ve been doing this for a long time’

As Saquon Barkley trotted out of the NovaCare Complex and onto the practice field for his first training camp session as an Eagle on Tuesday, he maneuvered through a tunnel of cheering kids, their arms outstretched in search of high-fives.

The running back obliged, absorbing a bit of their childlike wonder while taking in his new surroundings once he cleared the throng of fans. After spending the first six seasons of his career with the New York Giants, Barkley said he felt like a little kid himself as he got acclimated to an environment both unfamiliar and energetic, filled with excitement surrounding his arrival.

Once he reached the field, Barkley turned to A.J. Brown and verbalized that sense of awe:

I can’t believe they pay us to do this, come out here to play football.

Everything is starting over for Barkley, the Eagles’ marquee offseason acquisition thrust into the other side of the NFC East rivalry. After letting D’Andre Swift walk in free agency, Howie Roseman turned heads when he signed Barkley to a three-year, $37.75 million deal, making him the fourth-highest-paid running back on a per-year basis in the league.

The first day of camp marks the first opportunity for Barkley to begin to craft a new legacy as a member of the Eagles. His own expectations match the magnitude of the investment that the organization made in him.

“I’m looking forward to the future,” Barkley said. “I’ve got three years here, and hopefully I can go out and prove to this organization and this fan base that I am a special player and I can make a lot of plays and I can help us win games and get to the thing that we all want to get to, and that’s a Super Bowl.”

While Barkley’s focus remains on the opportunity in front of him, the world around him is fixated on his recent past. HBO’s Hard Knocks offered a peek behind the curtain into Barkley’s free agency decision and the Giants’ reaction over the course of its last three episodes.

The show took viewers inside the conversations that Giants general manager Joe Schoen had with Barkley and his agent, Ed Berry, in the lead-up to the running back ultimately signing with the Eagles.

» READ MORE: Saquon Barkley tells The Inquirer how adversity-filled years with the Giants helped shape the new Eagles RB.

Barkley already publicly reacted to the discussions portrayed on the show on The Athletic’s Scoop City podcast. Still, in his first availability with local media since the episodes dropped, Barkley fielded more questions about the way his tenure ended with the Giants and the way those conversations were portrayed in the show.

He acknowledged that he didn’t know his call was being filmed when Schoen informed him that he could test the waters of free agency. Even so, Barkley said Hard Knocks did a good job providing fans with a view into negotiations with a pending free agent. For him, though, the series doesn’t provide much value.

“I try my best not to live in the past,” Barkley said. “I try to live in the present. Take one day at a time. I still have a good relationship with all those guys over there. Thankful for all those guys over there in the past six years. But like I said, I’m moving on and looking forward to the present. That’s coming in here every single day, getting better, and proving and learning the playbook and getting ready to go out there and compete and have a great year with my teammates.”

In turn, he’s embracing the feeling of being a rookie again as he gets to know his new teammates and coaches. He has bonded off the field with quarterbacks Kenny Pickett and Will Grier over their shared affinity for golf. He has felt comfortable enough to be himself in the locker room, captivating DeVonta Smith with his sense of humor.

Barkley, like everyone else, also is getting accustomed to a new offense. Throughout the team periods, Barkley took plenty of handoffs from Jalen Hurts and even snared some passes out of the backfield. He’s getting used to running behind a new offensive line, which he said was the reason why he wanted to play in Philadelphia in the first place.

“I had a run today where it just felt natural,” Barkley said of working with the offensive line. “It felt like we’ve been doing this for a long time. I kind of set the linebacker up, and I went front door. It was wide open. We got a big gain on them. I’m looking forward to [more of] that.”

» READ MORE: Eagles beat reporters weigh in on the Saquon Barkley signing

He also expressed an understanding that he might not be the focal point of the offense in every game, unlike his overall experience in the Giants’ offense. Hurts, a talent in the run game in his own right, has a variety of skilled receivers and running backs at his disposal, including Brown, Smith, and tight end Dallas Goedert.

But with a change in scenery comes a change in mindset for the running back eager to capitalize on the talent surrounding him.

“I’m bought in,” Barkley said. “My mindset when I came here is I decided to come to this team because I know this team could help me for my legacy, for my career, and I know we have an opportunity to go out there and win games.

“Yes, I, at one point, was our focal point and know there will be times this season where there might be games where they’re going to hand the ball off to two-six, and I’ve got to try to take over the game. There might be games where I’ve got to sit back and watch A.J. Brown do what he do or DeVonta Smith. So whatever it takes, that’s what it is about. That’s what I’m about, buying into whatever it takes to win games is what I’m willing to do.”