Should the Eagles’ Saquon Barkley be NFL MVP? For Jason Kelce, there’s a ‘good argument’ to be made.
Barkley is having a career year — but the Tush Push could come back to hurt him when it’s time to vote for MVP.
The season is a little more than halfway over, but people are asking: Should Saquon Barkley win the NFL’s MVP award this year?
“I don’t want to jinx anything, but he’s looking pretty good midway through this season,” Jason Kelce said Wednesday on the latest episode of New Heights.
It’s extremely challenging for a nonquarterback to win MVP. The last running back to do so was Adrian Peterson in 2012. Just four running backs have won the award since 2000: Peterson, LaDainian Tomlinson (2006), Shaun Alexander (2005), and Marshall Faulk (2000).
Barkley is on pace for a career-best season. He has already 1,137 rushing yards, just 175 yards shy of his career-high of 1,312, set in 2022.
“What I notice is he’s got such good vision,” Kelce said. “He makes so many plays and makes reads that I’ve never seen or played with a guy make. … He just does a phenomenal job of creating runs. And combined with this offensive line, and the quarterback they have, and the threat he is — good luck.”
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Kelce said Barkley easily is the best Birds running back he has seen since LeSean McCoy, and McCoy is another one of Barkley’s biggest advocates. On FS1 Tuesday, McCoy made the case for Barkley as MVP. Those inside the Eagles locker room agree.
“We call him Superman,” Darius Slay said on The Facility podcast. “That dude is special. I used to be a guy who just watched him from the sidelines, watched from afar when we played against him when he was on the Giants, but to have him on our team, to see him running behind our type of offensive line. … Man, he’s something different. He should be an MVP favorite candidate.”
Jalen Hurts remains well ahead of Barkley in the MVP odds — +1200 compared to +4000 at DraftKings — despite Barkley being the favorite for Offensive Player of the Year, an award more commonly given to running backs and wide receivers. Recent winners include Christian McCaffrey, Justin Jefferson, and Cooper Kupp.
“The reality is the quarterback is the most valuable position on offense, so it makes sense that they’re winning this award the vast majority of the time,” Kelce said. “Every once in a while, there’s a running back like Adrian Peterson in 2012 where it’s so obvious that the only reason this offense is successful — or the main reason this offense is dominant the way they are — is because of how good that player is.
“There can absolutely be a case made for Saquon Barkley [to win MVP] this year and the way he’s playing and how he has elevated the offense and what the offense has turned into. We’ve always been a running team a little bit with Jalen, and the attributes that he brings opens a lot of the run game up. But they’ve really turned into this run and play-action team on first and second down, and they’re embracing it. Saquon, he has made the offense and the team so much better as a player and as a person. I think it’s a very good argument that he’s the most valuable component to a team this season.”
The only thing working against Barkley right now might be one of the things that’s helped make the Eagles offense tougher to stop than most: the Tush Push. While the play is successful far more often than it isn’t, it also keeps Barkley from scoring touchdowns near the goal line. He’s been tackled at the 1-yard line nine times this year. And that often leads to Eagles’ scores, just not for Barkley — Hurts has eight 1-yard touchdown runs this season.