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Eagles’ Saquon Barkley screaming and sprinting in a winter wonderland and into the history book is a sight to see

Barkley rips off a long touchdown run into the night to help send the Eagles to the NFC championship game with a win against the Rams.

Eagles running back Saquon Barkley runs for a 78-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Rams.
Eagles running back Saquon Barkley runs for a 78-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Rams.Read moreDavid Maialetti / Staff Photographer
    by EJ Smith
    Published 

When Saquon Barkley saw what will likely become the lasting image of the Eagles’ snowy playoff win, his first instinct was to see if he could get it taken down.

Try as he might, the photos of Barkley screaming and sprinting toward the end zone in the team’s 28-22 win over the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday will be about as impossible to erase as the history he made in the process. The Eagles running back finished with 205 rushing yards, breaking a 76-year-old franchise record set by Steve Van Buren in 1949 also against the Rams and delivering a signature snow performance — and image — akin to the one LeSean McCoy authored 12 years ago for the team.

Still, when backup tackle Fred Johnson showed Barkley the photo of him shouting and sprinting through the snow en route to his second long touchdown of the evening, he wasn’t sure he was as big a fan as everyone else.

“Fred did show me a picture of me screaming like a little kid,” Barkley said. “So I might have to try to get rid of that picture and get that picture taken down.”

Good luck.

In a way, Barkley’s historic performance started in the days leading into the divisional-round matchup with the No. 4-seeded Rams. After breaking several franchise records in the regular season, Barkley said he looked up the Eagles’ postseason rushing records, curious to see which might be attainable for him.

» READ MORE: Grading the Eagles: Saquon Barkley, Jalen Carter, and the O-line deliver against the Rams

You can hardly blame him, considering that he managed a franchise-record 255 yards against the Rams at SoFi Stadium in Week 12. In the rematch, Barkley said he wanted to put his stamp on the Eagles’ postseason run and did exactly that.

“It’s special because this week, I looked it up,” Barkley said. “It’s weird how things work like that. … Sometimes you chase greatness. I wanted, I felt like this week, I thought I had a good game last week, definitely if I had scored, the numbers would have looked different. But you want to create a legacy and I wanted to have one of those types of games. Just visualizing stuff and wondering what the number is. It’s funny how things like that happen.”

Barkley’s first big play came toward the end of the first quarter. With the Eagles facing third-and-4 at their 38-yard line, Barkley took an inside handoff and burst through a crease created by Lane Johnson and Mekhi Becton on the right side of the Eagles’ line before blowing by a Rams defensive back for a 62-yard touchdown run.

Toward the end of the long run, Barkley slowed down and shot a look back at Rams edge rusher Jared Verse, who served as the stadium’s foil for the evening after criticizing Eagles fans in the lead-up to the game. Barkley said he didn’t say anything to Verse on the play, but he talked enough to other Rams players to get a talking to from the officials.

“I got in trouble for talking a little crap,” Barkley said. “I got called into the principal’s office.”

» READ MORE: Eagles fans threw snowballs at Jared Verse and earned his respect

While the early score gave the Eagles a lead they carried into halftime, the running back’s influence was even more apparent when the conditions worsened in the second half as a couple of inches of snow descended onto the Linc.

Barkley said the slick field made it tougher for the offensive line, but he didn’t feel as affected by it as he expected. He said earlier last week he’d reach out to McCoy, who ran for 217 yards against the Detroit Lions in Week 14 of the 2013 season, for advice on how to handle the snow. After Sunday, Barkley said the precipitation was more of a wintry mix rather than a full-blown blizzard, so perhaps it wasn’t a seamless successor to McCoy’s “Snow Bowl.”

“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” Barkley said. “I don’t really count it as like — it was more like hail than it was snow, I’ll be honest. But it’s tough to play in that, especially for an O-lineman.”

Especially with Jalen Hurts playing through a left knee injury that sent him to the medical tent late in the third quarter, the Eagles relied on Barkley to get them through the storm. In the fourth quarter alone, Barkley had 10 carries for 96 yards that included a 78-yard touchdown run on a play he said he requested that offensive coordinator Kellen Moore call because of a specific look from the Rams defense.

“It was a play that I asked for, just being out there and getting a feel and seeing what they were doing,” Barkley said. “Me and [running backs coach Jemal Singleton] talked about it and took it to Kellen, and it’s a beautiful thing when stuff like that happens and it works and it all comes together.”

Barkley also conceded that he thought he was lined up on the wrong side before the snap, prompting a quick conversation with Hurts before the play that will remain synonymous with the victory, whether he likes it or not.

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