Eagles running back Saquon Barkley is stuck in the middle of a potential Super Bowl run while just 268 yards away from breaking Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record.
Barkley needs to average 134.0 rush yards per game over his remaining two games to break the record, but Dickerson doesn’t think he’ll do it.
“I don’t think he’ll break it,” the former Rams running back told Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times. “But if he breaks it, he breaks it. Do I want him to break it? Absolutely not. I don’t pull no punches on that. But I’m not whining about it. He had 17 games to do it? Hey, football is football. That’s the way I look at it. If he’s fortunate to get over 2,000 yards and get the record, it’s a great record to have.”
Eight NFL running backs have rushed for 2,000 yards in a season: Dickerson (2,105), Adrian Peterson (2,097), Jamal Lewis (2,066), Barry Sanders (2,053), Derrick Henry (2,027), Terrell Davis (2,008), Chris Johnson (2,006) and Simpson (2,003).
A confident Dickerson noted that Barkley would have achieved the feat in 17 games if it happened, highlighting that he played two more games when he passed the late O.J. Simpson, who went for 2,003 yards in 14 contests.
“O.J. Simpson was my favorite player,” Dickerson told Farmer. “He went over 2,000 yards in 14 games. It took me 15 games to get to 2,000. I had one extra game to play. Getting to 2,000 is an accomplishment in itself. I got close to that three other times.”
For Philadelphia, who could be locked into the No. 2 seed, the happy medium could be Barkley going over 2,000 in Week 17 against Dallas before sitting out the Week 18 finale against the Giants at Lincoln Financial Field.
