Nick Sirianni said on Wednesday that Saquon Barkley won’t play the season finale against New York, which means he won’t break Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing yards record. A bit of the press conference here:

With RB Saquon Barkley specifically, what was the consideration in allowing him to pursue that record and ultimately deciding not to? (Zach Berman)

NICK SIRIANNI: Not going to get into all that. Obviously, a lot plays into that. It’s a very special record that’s been standing for a very long time by a great player. It’s a team record that everybody is involved in, so you weigh in all those things.

But at the end of the day, you just try to do what’s best for the team. Again, when the bye was, how guys are feeling, the bumps and bruises we can take care of.

We’ve put ourselves in a position to be able to be in this situation. And our goals are to have success and to play good the next game we play. Not only New York, but whoever we play after that. We think this plays into that.

It’s not easy. It wasn’t the easiest decision to go through, but we have great people in this building and had a lot of input from a lot of different people, players included.

Howie (Roseman) and I discussed a bunch. Position coaches and coordinators and I discussed a bunch. I discussed with players. We have just selfless guys that want to do what’s best for the football team. And getting some guys some rest who have been grinding for the past, what did you say, 12 weeks, we felt that was in the best interest of the team.

Was RB Saquon Barkley involved in the conversation? (Zach Berman)

NICK SIRIANNI: Of course I talked to Saquon, yeah.

What was your conversation with RB Saquon Barkley like? (Tim McManus)

NICK SIRIANNI: I’ll keep my conversations private with these guys. Just discussing with him and where he was and what he felt. You guys can talk to him, but I’ll always keep my conversations private with these guys.

The media did talk to Saquon in the locker room, who said he’d be “down” to go for the record.

Here’s the video:

Barkley: “(Sirianni) asked me if I wanted to play, if I wanted to go for it. I said on Sunday (after the Dallas win) that I probably didn’t care too much for it. When I slept on it, I was like, there’s an opportunity to put my name in football history. May never get an opportunity like that again. So, I’m down. But, at the end of the day, I don’t care (about the record) if I’m putting the team at risk. He’s the head coach for a reason. He makes the decisions. And whatever decision he wanted to make, I let him know, ‘If you want me to play, I’m (gonna) go out there and make sure I get it. If we don’t, I’m okay with that, too.‘”

Tons of opinions out there, but this isn’t as complicated as some people are making it out to be. The Eagles are the #2 seed and a Super Bowl contender. If you’re someone who thinks that winning it all is what matters most, then you sit Saquon in a meaningless game and get him refreshed and ready for the playoffs. Same thing with the entire offensive line, because you aren’t putting Saquon on the field to run behind the backups.


There’s no situation in which the record and championship pursuit are not mutually exclusive. If you believe the latter is the most important thing, it negates the former, because the entire objective is to mitigate risk, especially in a game where nothing is on the line. And there’s no guarantee that Saquon even goes for 101 yards in the game if he does play, which people seem to be omitting. They are just assuming that he cruises to the record at home against his former team, as if the Giants are simply going to roll over. It’s true that they totally stink, but you can’t take anything for granted.

Even without the record, Saquon is an elite member of the 2,000 yards club. And you could make an argument at this very moment that his 2024 was better than Dickerson’s 1984. We broke down earlier in the week how Barkley has a better yards-per-carry number and is only 100 yards behind Dickerson despite running the ball 34 fewer times. If you extrapolate the numbers to give each guy the same amount of carries, let’s say 379 total to match Dickerson’s attempts, then Saquon would be at 2,202 yards through 16 games while Dickerson finished with 2,105.

If we’re going back even further, O.J. Simpson got to 2,003 yards in just 14 games back in 1973. Juice ran it 23.7 times per game for six yards a pop. So you could add to the argument and say O.J. and Saquon were more efficient in 1973 and 2024 than Dickerson was in 1984:

  • Eric Dickerson (16 games) – 379 carries, 2105 yards, 5.6 YPC, 131.6 YPG
  • Saquon Barkley (16 games) – 345 carries, 2,005 yards, 5.8 YPC, 125.3 YPG
  • O.J. Simpson (14 games) – 332 carries, 2,003 yards, 6.0 YPC, 143.1 YPG

Add a little bit of context and it makes the decision to sit Saquon much less controversial, for lack of a better word. We keep talking about “the record” as some simplified target number, when Saquon’s performance this year may be better than Dickerson’s even without the 17th game.