At first glance, it would seem our friend Nick Sirianni is in a bit of a perilous position. His place in the good graces of Philadelphia Eagles fans ever tenuous, he can either play Saquon Barkley in a meaningless season finale against the division-rival New York Giants and help him make a run at Eric Dickerson’s all-time single-season rushing record, while risking injury to a weapon that is absolutely central to their scheme—Barkley needs 101 yards to break it—or he can sit Barkley and position himself as the no-fun police in front of a veteran locker room that seems, to put it generously, difficult to please and quick to turn.
Playing Barkley and risking some kind of high ankle sprain that could affect the star’s readiness for the playoffs or, God forbid, something worse, would position Sirianni as an all-time Philadelphia punchline. And while Sirianni simply doesn’t care—I don’t remember seeing a coach survive so many moments at the knifepoint of public opinion with this kind of beautiful teenager-like indifference—there is a limit to everyone’s finesse.
Sitting Barkley, of course, would also rob the franchise of a Schadenfreude crafted via Michelin star chef. Here, while hosting one of the more disliked opponents on your schedule, the people who let Barkley walk in the first place, is the chance to do something classically Philadelphian. One could make the argument that having Barkley become the NFL’s all-time single-season rushing leader at home would be more valuable for the franchise and entertaining for its fan base than sitting him to preserve the integrity of an eventual divisional-round loss.
We’ve not yet discussed the most obvious answer, though, and one I could see coming this week as common sense prevails. Just as Barkley made the decision not to come back out on the field against the Giants to set his personal career-high in Week 8, a move that was roundly applauded earlier this season, Barkley can be the one to take the pressure off Sirianni’s shoulders and opt out of the season finale.
Far be it from me to tell someone who is within earshot of Dickerson’s record to fold in the wings and set the machine to park. Breaking Dickerson’s record—as we saw in a sad and predatory way with the recent clip of Mark Gastineau from an ESPN documentary—would mean something to Barkley not just now but for the rest of his life. It would allow him to earn more at card shows, sure, but it could set the table for a back-end career that makes him a more realistic candidate for more significant honors down the road. Barkley is behind Joe Mixon and Ezekiel Elliott right now in career yards and has a lot of padding to go before he’s in the Hall of Fame discussion. That said, a Hall of Fame résumé is seriously buttressed by logging the best single season the position has ever seen.
Barkley will also, very likely, never be put in this position again. While he’s just 27 years old, the Eagles had a favorable run of opponents this year (Aaron Schatz did a fine job outlining the first 12 weeks of the season and a notable absence of a top-10 run defenses by DVOA). The NFC East is in a temporarily sad state and even the second-best team, the Washington Commanders, is the 25th-best rushing defense by EPA per play.
If he is going to break the record, this is his shot.
Barkley, though, said it himself during Sunday’s postgame press conference. After putting the whole thing in God’s hands, he noted that he came to Philadelphia for more than personal accolades. Barkley should know by now that, in this city, God has the local talk radio station on speed dial and isn’t afraid to berate the team’s own head coach from a luxury seat during a victory (knowing full well that this coach in particular will probably respond because he can’t help himself).
While it’s admirable that many Eagles after Sunday’s clubbing of the Cowboys said they wanted to help Barkley get the record, it’s important to note that Barkley is not the only injury risk. Allowing Barkley to make an attempt behind an offensive line composed mostly of backups would be lunacy. It would feel equally ridiculous trotting out one of the NFL’s best offensive lines—a unit that has seen Jordan Mailata and Cam Jurgens both come off injured reserve already, and Landon Dickerson leave a game a few weeks ago with an injury—specifically for a game that does not alter their seeding in any way whatsoever. This is what changes the dynamic. More than 50% of the offense—not to mention that one of Barkley’s best downfield blockers is A.J. Brown—is directly tied to the pursuit of an individual record.
Because of this dynamic, having the directive come from Barkley himself would make all the difference. Like going for the record itself, making the decision to sit has a potential payoff that could give Barkley his very own provincial fairy tale; something that, in this particular part of the world, is often as valuable as a record itself.
As funny as it sounds, Barkley’s value to the Eagles was never more apparent than a Dec. 15 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in which he had only 65 rushing yards and was almost outgained in total yardage by Kenneth Gainwell. Simply moving him around in the backfield displaced Pittsburgh’s defense presnap like a handful of lawn ornaments. It created a forum for an embattled and unhappy Brown and Jalen Hurts to have a critical, feel-good, middle-finger game against a traditionally sound defense. It solidified the Eagles as a kind of multidimensional offense capable of winning on myriad levels against a group of playmakers who, a few weeks prior, made MVP candidate Lamar Jackson look human by eliminating the middle of the field and preventing him from taking the ball on zone-read handoffs.
Barkley is a smart player and an even smarter human. He knows that he alone is the difference between an Eagles team that is good enough to lose admirably amid a middling NFC playoff field and a team capable of making a deeper run to a place that he could have never envisioned a few miles up I-95.
He also knows the benefit of taking that burden out of Sirianni’s hands altogether, given that the coach is still recovering from an end-of-season meltdown in 2023 that made the prospect of an emergency Bill Belichick takeover seem sensible. It’s not that Sirianni doesn’t have any juice; I think his public perception and his perception in the locker room are two vastly different animals. It’s that Sirianni has tried, and largely succeeded, in building something that is not solely of his ownership. He has perpetually turned the locker room over to players, and this is a moment in which a player needs to make a choice.
When you frame it as a choice between an individual accomplishment—quick: name Dickerson’s record-breaking starting offensive line, head coach or offensive coordinator—and the possibility of something far better for everyone, it’s really a question for one person and one person only. Barkley made the right choice earlier this season and can do it again.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Saquon Barkley Should Make the Decision to Sit Out Week 18.
