There’s going to be a lot of Saquon Barkley talk this week, whether from Mike Tomlin or others from the Steelers, and rightfully so. He is one of the premier players in the league and has proven himself all over with the Eagles.
On pace to break the NFL single-season rushing record, the Steelers are now charged with slowing him down. And Tomlin knows that’s no easy task, as someone who has planned against him before. Why? Because the Saquon Barkley of the New York Giants is not the Saquon Barkley of the Philadelphia Eagles.
“You couple his talents with a bunch of talent around him where you can’t focus on him, then he’s really just gonna explode”, Tomlin said of Barkley on The Pat McAfee Show. “I think it’s as simple as that. We played him in 2020 in the opener when he was playing for the Giants, and he had all of our attention. We’re not afforded that opportunity this time around because of guys like Jalen Hurts and that receiving tandem. Sometimes the strength is in the pack, and he’s got some talent around him. All that does is highlight his already existing talent”.
And certainly, Saquon Barkley’s talent exists in abundance. In 74 games with the Giants, he rushed for 5,211 yards with 35 touchdowns. He had ebbs and flows in his career, often tied to injury, but his talent was undeniable. He was a star as a rookie, but health eluded him. In Week 2 of his third season, after playing the Steelers, he suffered his first major injury.
In that game against the Steelers, they did a stunningly good job against Barkley. He rushed for just six yards on 15 carries with a long of seven. That means he gained minus-one yard on his other 14 carries.
Incredibly, Barkley lost yards on eight of his 15 carries against the Steelers back in 2020. Unfortunately, I don’t expect that the Steelers will replicate that pattern—which was Mike Tomlin’s point. Back then, Barkley was all they had to worry about. Nobody was losing sleep over Daniel Jones and Darius Slayton and Sterling Shepard.
They produced at times, Slayton with two touchdowns from Jones, but that’s because the Steelers knew their mission was to not let Saquon Barkley beat them. But the Eagles don’t have Daniel Jones and Sterling Shepard. They have Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. And they have one of the best offensive lines in football, on top of that.
Barkley is the straw that stirs the Eagles’ drink, but that’s just what any great running back is to an offense. He happens to be in a great offense, a Super Bowl-caliber unit before he even arrived. Mike Tomlin understands the difference.
The whole league understands the difference because Barkley is shoving it down our throats. Put simply, he is playing the best football of his career. That says a lot about him. But, and Tomlin is completely right, that also says a lot about the Eagles as well.
