Eagles running back Saquon Barkley is continuing his march toward Eric Dickerson’s NFL record for rushing yards in a season, and he has an excellent chance of breaking it.
Barkley has 1,623 rushing yards this season. Dickerson’s record is 2,105 yards, set in a 16-game season in 1984. So Barkley needs 483 yards in the Eagles’ final four games to break Dickerson’s record. That’s an average of 121 yards a game. So far this season Barkley has averaged 125 yards a game.
The Eagles’ remaining games are home against the Steelers, at Washington, home against the Cowboys and home against the Giants. The Steelers have a good run defense, but the Eagles’ final three opponents are near the bottom of the league in rushing yards allowed, and Barkley should thrive against them.
There’s a very good chance that Barkley will head into the season finale against his former team, the Giants, within reach of Dickerson’s record. It would be the signature moment of Barkley’s career to become the single-season rushing king in a finale against the team that let him walk in free agency.
A complicating factor is whether the Eagles will have anything to play for in Week 18. They might be locked into the No. 2 seed in the NFC, which would normally mean resting their top players. But Eagles coach Nick Sirianni would surely love to give Barkley the opportunity to set the record, and the Eagles might play him just long enough to get it. And Giants fans will not be happy watching the player team owner John Mara called the most popular Giant by far breaking the record in an Eagles uniform.