Saquon Barkley is worth more to the Eagles than what he’d bring in a trade. Keeping him is a no-brainer.
At a time when everything appears to be on the table for the Eagles, hanging onto a leader and player such as Barkley should not be.
Without intending to, Saquon Barkley made the strongest possible case Sunday night at Northwest Stadium against the Eagles trading him — this season, next season, any season. Howie Roseman and the team’s front office had already assured him that he’d be staying put come the NFL trade deadline next Tuesday. But in the aftermath of the Eagles’ sixth straight loss, this one 27-10 to the Washington Commanders, in the silence of a somber locker room, Barkley took the extra step of showing why there’s no realistic return that would be worth sending him somewhere else.
“My whole entire mindset is, we have a little issue going on right now,” he said, “and I feel like I’m the type of player and type of leader who can help us get out of it, and I want to be one of the reasons why we fix it.”
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Right now, Barkley has a bad back and a bad hamstring, and the Eagles are a bad team, and shutting him down for the rest of this season to preserve his long-term health would be a defensible decision. Still, in the cost-benefit analysis that has to accompany any move Roseman might make to improve the team for 2027 and beyond, retaining Barkley is a no-brainer. Not just because trading him would chew up $26.5 million in dead-cap money in ‘27, according to the database OvertheCap.com. And not just because the chances of getting enough value in return for him at this stage of his career — he’s 29 and in his ninth NFL season — are slim.
» READ MORE: The Eagles could lead the NFL in dead salary cap money in 2027. Would a trade-deadline fire sale make things worse?
Look around the Eagles’ locker room, and you can’t help but notice how few veteran leaders remain. Jordan Mailata has clearly tried to take on a greater role as a spokesman for the offense, and Zack Baun and Jordan Davis are willing to stand up for an underperforming defense, and … who else? So many of the players who are supposed to be entering the prime of their careers haven’t gone through the kinds of hard times that Malcolm Jenkins, Jason Kelce, Brandon Graham, and Lane Johnson had. Jalen Carter so far hasn’t shown he’s cut out to be anything more than a man-child, and he, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean, and their peers haven’t known a world in which the Eagles are anything other than Super Bowl winners or contenders.
Barkley has gone through such dark days, just not here, not yet. It’s fitting timing that his former team is the Eagles’ next opponent. The New York Giants have straightened themselves out some now that they have, in John Harbaugh, a competent head coach with enough power within the franchise to make a positive difference. After the 2023 season, though, they were the laughingstock of the league for allowing Barkley to sign with the Eagles, for handing him to an NFC East rival and giving him the shot to shine as the biggest star on a championship team, for failing to understand that he was the caliber of player and person an organization should do everything it can to keep.
Funny that Barkley finds himself now in a similar situation to the one he was in then.
“That was so long ago,” he said. “That was three years now. My mindset’s still the same. The last time I said this — when I was in New York, that I wanted to be a Giant for life — it kind of went the opposite [way]. So I’m not going to sit here and jinx myself.
“I just have nothing but respect for this organization and the men and women in the building and this team. So that’s how I feel. I’m not saying I like being in this situation, because no one likes losing six in a row. But I don’t cower away from it. It’s something that’s present, and you can be like, ‘Oh, here we go again,’ or you can try to find a way to fix it. That’s kind of been my M.O. When I was at Penn State, helped turn that around. Had that belief when I went to New York. Just didn’t [happen]. Sometimes it doesn’t go that way. Was able to come here and be part of something special, and I feel like the culture is here.”
It will be as long as the Eagles take care to maintain and replenish it, and Barkley doesn’t have to be a 2,000-yard back again to help them in ways tangible and intangible. He commands enough respect, models the right habits and attitude and demeanor, that they would be fools to tell him, everyone else in their organization, and everyone around the league, He’s worth nothing more than a third-round pick.
The NFL isn’t the NBA, isn’t the NHL, isn’t another sport where a collection of young talent can develop together over time. There’s plenty of inherent roster turnover just from players’ physical attrition and the league’s salary-cap and contract rules. A franchise like the Eagles as they are now — a franchise that has won, is in the midst of a nightmare season, and expects to win again soon — needs at least a few mainstays to bridge that gap.
“I don’t know if I’m being asked to do that,” Barkley said. “It kind of comes with the territory. It’s not just me. It’s a whole bunch of us. Just in trying to be a reason that we fix it, I’m part of the problem, too. I’m part of the problem and why we haven’t won in six games. It’s all of us. We’ve all put ourselves in this situation, and we all own a little part of it. We’ve just got to do whatever we can to try to get out of it.
“Maybe I’m just naive. I’ve said it before; I said it while I was in New York: Until we’re statistically out of it, I believe we still have a chance. Even when that happens, you still have to come to work. … There’s a kid out there whose parents saved up to come out and watch us play. Whatever it is, you’ve got to find your ‘why.’”
He has his. What he did through the great, he can do now through the awful. Saquon Barkley can show the world how it’s supposed to be done. That still matters. For the Eagles, it has never mattered more.
The Eagles have problems. Eight games into the season, that much is sure. But which ones are symptomatic, versus the ones that are systemic? From the head coach to the personnel, from coordinators to the front office, The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane and David Murphy scrutinize the micro issues that point to some of the larger dilemmas the Eagles now face: should they start to pack it in, and who will be held accountable for the team’s shortcomings? Listen here.
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