Saquon Barkley rated No. 1 player in the NFL by his peers after dominant debut season with Eagles
Barkley set an NFL record with 2,504 rushing yards between the regular season and postseason to earn the top spot. The Eagles finished with a league-high nine players on the list.
Saquon Barkley’s historic 2024 season, his first with the Eagles, saw him rush for an NFL record 2,504 yards between the regular and postseasons.
Barkley broke off long touchdown runs, hurdled backward over a defender, and ran the Eagles all the way to the Super Bowl while winning the offensive player of the year award.
The running back’s peers watched that 2024 season and decided he was the best player in the league. On Monday night, Barkley was revealed as the No. 1 player in the annual NFL Top 100 rankings, which are voted on by NFL players.
In a video released by the NFL, players like Micah Parsons, Bijan Robinson, Justin Jefferson, Pat Surtain II, Lane Johnson, and others explained their vote for Barkley.
“If I was a little kid watching the NFL and I saw Saquon Barkley making plays and stuff like the way that he does, how fast he is, the jumps, the 360 hurdles, like, dude, it’s pretty fun to watch,” San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy said. “All those things put together, you got him.”
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Said his teammate, Cooper DeJean: “He probably is the best football player I’ve ever watched live in person. I’m glad I don’t have to go up against him.”
Barkley, who is the Madden NFL 26 video game cover athlete, signed a three-year, $37.75 million contract with the Eagles in March of 2024 after the New York Giants let him walk in free agency. Behind a better offensive line, Barkley exploded for 2,005 yards during the regular season. He may have topped Eric Dickerson’s single-season record of 2,105 if the Eagles hadn’t rested their starters in the regular-season finale.
This offseason, Barkley signed a contract extension worth more than $20 million per season, making him the highest-paid running back in NFL history on a yearly basis.
Barkley is the league-high ninth member of the current Eagles team ranked in the top 100. The others are Jalen Hurts (19), Lane Johnson (23), Zack Baun (26), A.J. Brown (29), Jalen Carter (43), Quinyon Mitchell (49), Cooper DeJean (60), and Jordan Mailata (69).
Josh Sweat (95) also made the list after his eight-sack 2024 season, but he is no longer on the team.
Jeffrey Lurie has owned the Philadelphia Eagles, which he purchased in 1994, longer than his son, Julian, has been alive. But in recent years, the younger Lurie, heir to the franchise and now 31, has assumed a more pervasive and influential role in the organization. While the Eagles have made no secret about Julian’s increased involvement with the team, specifics about his role have been scant. In recent months, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane spoke to nearly two dozen sources on and off the record to gain a better understanding of not just who Julian Lurie is and what he does, but - most important of all - whether he’ll be ready to assume the reins as Eagles Chairman and CEO, whenever the time comes. Jeff shares the biggest takeaways from his reporting with Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski in this companion episode to Jeff’s feature article about the Eagles' succession plan. Listen here.
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