Can Eagles star Saquon Barkley ever be mentioned with Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, & Emmitt Smith?

Saquon Barkley has a goal. It is simple.

“I just want to be great, man. I just want to take it to the highest level that I can take it.”

“I want to be the best of all time.”

He said this at an August press conference when he was asked about his hopes as an Eagle, having signed a three-year, $37.75 million deal as a free agent after the New York Giants, with whom he’d wasted his first six seasons, let him walk.

» READ MORE: With the Eagles, ‘cocky’ Saquon Barkley can’t wait to show how the Giants stifled his talent

When pressed regarding what might constitute greatness, Barkley didn’t mention Super Bowl wins or MVP votes or other accolades. Super Bowls are a team achievement. MVP is a quarterbacks’ race. He cannot control either.

What he can control is how well he prepares to be the most effective running back of his generation.

“I feel like God’s blessed me with unbelievable talent. I’m able to move like a little guy. Run like a big guy,” Barkley said.

Then he invoked the names of legends. Emmitt Smith. Barry Sanders. “Sweetness” himself, Walter Payton.

“Emmitt Smith has the most rushing yards of all time, but I don’t think he’s my [No.] one. Barry is the best with the ball in his hands,” Barkley said. “But all around? Tough, grit, pass pro, in between the tackles, outside? You’ve got to go Walter.”

Big names. Big dreams.

“Hopefully,” Barkley said, “I’m mentioned in that category.”

You wouldn’t want him any other way. But can his hopes ever be realized?

How close can Barkley come to earning a place on football’s Mount Rushmore of running backs? After all, the names he mentioned haven’t taken a snap since 2005, when Barkley was 7 years old. Sanders retired when Barkley was 1. Payton last played in 1987.

“We had YouTube,” Barkley said. “I’d type in all the great backs, whether it was Barry or Walter. I still do it. I was watching Todd Gurley the other day. I was watching Zeke [Ezekiel Elliott], who’s been in this offense before. LaDainian Tomlinson. Marshall Faulk. I try to watch all those guys.”

He wasn’t just killing time. He was studying.

“How he was running. How he was setting up defender,” Barkley said. “What move did he [use] here?”

Since he was drafted, NFL teams, ever more fixated on passing, have averaged just 26.6 rushing attempts. That’s down from 27.7 the first six seasons (1990-95) that Smith played; he is the most recent of the Big Three to have begun his career. Payton was a rookie in 1975; teams averaged 35.4 runs per game in Payton’s first six seasons.

The numbers are even more insidious.

Featured backs in previous eras did almost all of the running. However, in the past six years, third-down backs and quarterbacks have gobbled up carries like Pac-Man.

Since Barkley entered the league, backs have had 300 rushing attempts in a season only 10 times, and only once did the runner have a quarterback who made the Pro Bowl with a passer rating better than 100, and that was Derrick Henry in 2019 with Ryan Tannehill in Tennessee. The closest Barkley ever came to 300 rushes was 2022, when he had 295 on a talent-starved Giants team. It seems unlikely he’ll ever see more than 250 with the talent-heavy Eagles.

It is a symptom of the times.

In the 19 seasons since Smith retired in 2005, it’s happened only 68 times. Backs had at least 300 rushing attempts 84 times in the 19 seasons before Smith retired.

Finally, Barkley is 27, and he has a history of injuries.

So, in the absence of a heavy workload, what might constitute “great” for Barkley? What might earn him mention with the best of all time? Nothing, really. It’s probably too late.

Barkley has 5,211 rushing yards in his first six seasons. Eight players have more than that in that span, and three — Henry, Nick Chubb, and Elliott — have at least 1,000 more. Barkley has 7,311 yards from scrimmage. Nine players have more than that in that span, and three — Henry, Christian McCaffrey, and Alvin Kamara — have at least 1,000 more.

» READ MORE: How Saquon Barkley plans to soar with Eagles following Giants stretch: ‘Everything I want to accomplish is still there’

His list of greats, after their first six seasons, stand light-years ahead. Tomlinson had almost 4,000 more rushing yards and almost 5,000 more yards from scrimmage. Smith had more than 3,500 more rushing yards and 3,500 more yards from scrimmage. Sanders had almost 3,500 more rushing yards and more than 3,000 more yards from scrimmage. Payton had almost 3,500 more rushing yards and almost 3,000 more yards from scrimmage, even though he started just seven games as a rookie. Faulk had about 1,500 more rushing yards and more than 3,200 yards from scrimmage.

With the exception of Sanders, all of Barkley’s heroes had their best seasons before their seventh season. This is Barkley’s seventh season.

Really, how great can he be?

Pretty great, actually.

The bad news: The Eagles haven’t had a back go over 260 carries since LeSean McCoy broke the 300-mark in 2013 and 2014. They’ve also had just two 1,000-yard runners since then.

The good news: The two 1,000-yard runners were Miles Sanders in 2022 and D’Andre Swift in 2023. Nick Sirianni will run the ball with a featured back.

Will new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore? History suggests he will.

When Moore was the OC in Dallas, from 2019 to 2022, Elliott rushed for at least 1,000 yards twice, while fellow running back Tony Pollard gained 1,007 yards in 2022. They had to share time with receiver CeeDee Lamb, tight end Dalton Schultz, and nimble quarterback Dak Prescott. That’s not quite the weaponry the Eagles have in A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, and dual-threat QB Jalen Hurts, but the Birds will feed a beast like Barkley.

So, over the life of his contract, what are realistic numbers for a healthy and featured Barkley?

He gained more than 1,300 rushing yards and 1,600 yards from scrimmage in 2018 and 2022, respectively. Assume the Eagles’ offense remains prolific for three seasons; it should, since its principals are under contract for the next three seasons, including the most relevant offensive linemen.

As such, give Saquon 1,200 rushing yards and 1,500 yards from scrimmage every year. Throw in 12 total touchdowns a year; he’s had at least 10 three times, and, with the retirement of Jason Kelce and the mounting injuries to Hurts, I think the “Tush Push,” their short-yardage superweapon, will go the way of the dodo. After all, why risk your $255 million quarterback when you’ve got a Rushmore-caliber workhorse on your payroll?

Those numbers would put Barkley near 9,000 rushing yards and 11,000 total yards from scrimmage, with 83 total touchdowns. He would be 30. He might be able to play another year or two, which likely would push his rushing total past 10,000 yards, his total yards near 13,000, and his TD total to 90 or more.

No, that’s nowhere near Smith’s record of 18,355 rushing yards. It’s not close to Payton’s 21,264 yards from scrimmage, third behind wideout Jerry Rice and Smith. It’s not within light-years of Tomlinson’s 162 total touchdowns, also third behind Rice and Smith.

But every player in NFL history outside of Ricky Watters with at least 10,000 rushing yards, 90 touchdowns, and 13,000 yards from scrimmage is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. (Frank Gore and Adrian Peterson meet these criterion but are not yet eligible for the Hall of Fame.)

That would be pretty great.