Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’m glad Saquon Barkley is healthy and dicing up defenses again.

In today’s SI:AM:

🥩 Football and barbecue
🏀 An unlikely WNBA superstar
👁️ An overlooked muscle

Saquon’s career year

The Philadelphia Eagles turned heads this offseason when they bucked leaguewide trends and handed out a big free-agent contract to a running back, luring Saquon Barkley away from the rival New York Giants on a three-year, $37.8 million contract. Signing a guy with an injury history as long as Barkley’s to the fourth-largest current running back contract was a move met with more than a little skepticism. But 11 weeks into the season, there’s no denying Philadelphia made the right call.

Thursday night’s game against the Washington Commanders was just the latest example of how critical Barkley has been to the Eagles’ success. He had 26 carries for 146 yards and two touchdowns—his fourth multi-touchdown game of the year—and also had two receptions for 52 yards. But the box score doesn’t illustrate just how big of a role Barkley played in the 26–18 victory. His two touchdowns came in the final five minutes of the game on long runs that helped the Eagles pull away in what had been a very tight game.

Barkley’s first score came on a crucial third down where the Commanders really needed a stop to hold the Eagles to a field goal attempt and keep it a one-score game. Washington defensive end Dorance Armstrong Jr. went to the outside to try to get into the backfield and Barkley dashed through the gaping hole created by his mistake. No Commanders defender was able to lay even a finger on Barkley before he crossed the goal line 23 yards later.

The second touchdown—following a Jayden Daniels interception—really put the game away. It was a thing of beauty. Barkley made two quick cuts behind the line of scrimmage on a toss play and breezed past the Washington defense untouched.

Barkley’s big game means he now leads the league in rushing yards per game with 113.7, by far the highest average of his career. He entered this season averaging 70.3 yards per game and had never averaged more than 82 yards per game in a season. It was also his sixth 100-yard game of the season, the most he’s had in a single season since his rookie year in 2018 (seven). He has as many 100-yard games this season as he had in the previous three combined. And he still has seven more games to go.

One reason Barkley is having a career year is that he’s playing behind an Eagles line that’s significantly better than the Giants’ was last season. But just as important is the fact that he’s fully healthy after playing through an ankle injury for much of last season. When was the last time you saw Barkley accelerate as quickly and run as fluidly as he did on Thursday night? According to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, Barkley reached a top speed of 20.78 mph on his first touchdown run of the night, his fifth run this season over 20 mph. That’s the most of any player in the league. He also has three of the eight fastest runs in the league this year.

Next Gen Stats also has a metric called expected rushing yards that takes the speed and acceleration of every blocker and defender on the field at the time of the handoff and uses them to determine the number of yards the ballcarrier should be expected to gain on the play. This year, Barkley ranks third in the NFL in rushing yards expected per attempt after ranking 13th last season and 17th in 2022.

Barkley is the driving force behind a Philadelphia rushing attack that ranks second in the league in yards per game, narrowly trailing the Baltimore Ravens. The Eagles had a very good run game last season with D’Andre Swift as the lead back, ranking eighth in rushing yards and ninth in yards per attempt, but Barkley’s addition has instantly made them one of the very best running teams in the league.

The Eagles’ offense as a whole isn’t markedly better than it was last season. They ranked seventh in the league with 25.5 points per game last year and are seventh with 25.9 points per game this season. But there are still benefits to having a top-notch running game, as we saw in the win over Washington. The ability to keep the ball on the ground late in close games is an effective recipe for victory—whether you’re chewing clock or busting long touchdown runs to put the game away. Avoiding a repeat of last year’s late-season collapse will be a lot easier for the Eagles with Barkley to lean on.

Sun forward Alyssa Thomas grimaces while moving past Indiana Forward guard Lexie Hull.
Thomas (25) has become a superstar despite some serious physical limitations. | Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images

The best of Sports Illustrated

The top five…

… things I saw last night:

5. Frankie Luvu’s effort to thwart an Eagles trick play attempt.
4. The Commanders’ two-point conversion in the final minute of the game. Jayden Daniels scrambled around in the backfield long enough to find Zach Ertz in the back of the end zone and Ertz did an incredible job to keep his feet in bounds on the catch.
3. East Carolina’s stop on fourth-and-goal against Tulsa. ECU fired coach Mike Houston and has now won three in a row to become bowl eligible.
2. Connor McDavid’s goal for his 1,000th career NHL point. He became the fourth-fastest player to reach that milestone.
1. McDavid’s no-look assist on Darnell Nurse’s overtime game-winner.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Saquon Barkley Has Been Worth Every Penny for the Eagles.