Eric Dickerson was ‘sweating’ about Saquon Barkley and his record. Terrell Davis is at peace with whatever happens.

Last week, Terrell Davis was watching TV when he saw a clip of Saquon Barkley. The Eagles had just announced that Barkley would be resting for Week 18. The running back talked to the media, and said his job was to win a Super Bowl, not to break Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record.

Davis — a Hall of Fame running back who ran for 2,008 yards through 16 games for Denver in 1997-98 — felt sorry for him. He considered sending Barkley a text, but decided not to. He didn’t want to make a sensitive situation worse. But he couldn’t shake the thought that this was a mistake.

“If I’m his coach, and I know he’s got a lot to worry about,” Davis said over the phone, “he’s got to get the team ready, versus going out for some record that maybe in other people’s minds is not as important.

“But man, I watched Saquon, and I’m thinking, ‘Y’all should do him a solid.’ You can tell, he’s like, ‘Well, if they want me to go for, I’ll go for it’ — he wants to go for it. There’s no question in my mind. Take the pressure off of him and just support him.”

» READ MORE: Saquon Barkley’s standout stats in a dominant and historic first season with the Eagles

Davis was grateful he never had to make that choice. When the Broncos headed into their Dec. 27, 1998, game against the Seattle Seahawks, Davis had 1,830 yards. He wasn’t going to break Dickerson’s record of 2,105 yards in a single season, but he was close to clearing 2,000.

Denver had already clinched a playoff spot. Davis could have rested. He didn’t — and to be fair, the Broncos had a bye week after week 16. But there was never a debate about whether or not he’d play.

Then-head coach Mike Shanahan told his starters that they’d be suiting up for Game 16 because they’d lost the two games beforehand. They were looking for some momentum. But deep down, Davis knew something else was going on.

“It was business as usual. Mike didn’t say, ‘Hey, man, we’re gonna go for it.’ We never talked about it,” Davis said.

He added: “But Mike had the awareness to know that everybody who worked hard, the lineman, receivers — we all worked for it. It became a team goal, more so than it was just an individual goal, to be able to hit that and go into the playoffs with the momentum.”

The Broncos hit their stride, and carried it into back-to-back Super Bowl wins in 1997-98 and 1998-99. Davis believes that if anything, clearing 2,000 yards only helped him and his teammates.

“After we lost to Jacksonville in [the divisional round in January 1997], Mike’s thing was, from now on, no more resting,” Davis said. “We’re gonna play every game we play. And with that mentality, that’s how we were able to win two Super Bowls.

“We weren’t going into games thinking, ‘Alright, here’s a game we can throw away.’ We won 18 straight games in a row. Like, we knew we had one gear. That was it.”

Now that Dickerson’s record is off the table, Barkley will chase Davis’ record for most rushing yards in a season, including the playoffs (2,476), which the Hall of Famer set in 1998. Barkley is 472 yards shy of breaking it.

Unlike Dickerson — who Davis said was “sweating” because Barkley was getting close — Davis isn’t thinking too much about it.

“No one talks about my record,” he said with a laugh. “But nah, I’m good. There’s really no reaction to it. Let’s say he gets close and he breaks it, or whatever… at least I can show my kids, ‘Hey, man, at one point, I had the record. At one point, your dad was OK.’”

» READ MORE: Eric Dickerson called Saquon Barkley and said he wished the Eagles RB got a shot to break his record

Davis understands where Dickerson was coming from. He knows the value in making your mark on NFL history. But he also says that if anyone were to break Dickerson’s record, or his own record, he’d be happy for it to be Barkley.

He’s been following the Eagles running back since he was college. Davis first saw him play in 2017, when Penn State was playing in the Rose Bowl against USC. Barkley ran for 194 yards, and had a 79-yard rushing touchdown.

But it wasn’t just the numbers that impressed him. It was the way Barkley played.

“Obviously, this dude has got real thick thighs,” Davis said. “But he’s not just a big dude who plows through. He has the ability to be really shifty, but he’s also got that gear where you see, he’s very patient, and then he explodes. And he’s got great football awareness, spatial awareness. He can see and feel holes, even if he’s not looking at it, he’s got a great sense for where they are. He finds them.

“And then you throw in power, and top-end speed… when he breaks, most runnings backs, we all get to a point where we kind of throttle down. That’s me. I can only go so fast. But he continues to accelerate.”

Davis texted his former Broncos teammate, Anthony Lynn, whose son used to play for Penn State.

“I was like, ‘Man, who is this dude?’ And he was like, ‘Man, he is the real deal,’” Davis said.

From then on, Davis was hooked. He met Barkley at a few events before he was drafted, and began to follow his career. That has continued in his Eagles tenure. Davis said that Barkley’s reverse hurdle move against the Jaguars on Nov. 3 was “the best sequence of moves I’ve ever seen.”

“The greatest running back of all time is Barry Sanders,” Davis said. “And I’ve never seen Barry do anything like that.”

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Regardless of what happens this postseason, Davis will be watching. And if Barkley breaks his record, he will be happy for him.

“One is always good,” Davis said. “But I will say this, and this is the God honest truth, if he does it, you couldn’t ask for a better dude to do it. If there was a guy that I have beef with or a guy that rubbed me the wrong way or something, that’s a different story.

“But when you got somebody that you appreciate, in how he handles life, how he handles football… you couldn’t ask for a better person.”