SAQUON BARKLEY DESERVES THE NFL RUSHING RECORD, EVEN IF DICKERSON SAYS OTHERWISE
Eric Dickerson should understand that running backs are underpaid in a bizarre league system, so why root against Barkley when he needs only 268 yards in two games to beat a 40-year-old rushing mark?
Eric Dickerson is still The Dick, as we called him, while Saquon Barkley has the top-selling jersey at an unrelated Dick’s House Of Sport outside Philadelphia. What does this mean? Fans still want Barkley to break the NFL’s single-season rushing record, even as Dickerson roots against him.
A cheap way to gain a headline, wouldn’t you say? Forty years have passed — forty — since Dickerson followed his goggles and ran for 2,105 yards in 16 games. If nothing else, he should support Barkley in an era when running backs are devalued and underpaid by the league’s compensation structure. With 1,838 yards in 15 games, Barkley needs 268 more in two weeks to blow out a long-held standard. His final game for the Eagles comes against the New York Giants, who dumped him last offseason in an insult to a hijacked team and fans who loved him.
It’s a crackling story in late December, especially when Dickerson broke the record of O.J. Simpson, who played a 14-game schedule. Just accept what happens, right? Seventeen, 16, it works? He says otherwise.
“I don’t think he’ll break it. But if he breaks it, he breaks it. Do I want him to break it? Absolutely not,” Dickerson told the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t pull no punches on that.”
Why? “I’ll have no choice but to keep up with it because I get so many text messages,” he said. “People blowing up my phone like, ‘Man, it’s not fair. He gets 17 games,’ or, ‘We’re going to put a hex on him.’ ’’
Dickerson likes Barkley. He just likes his record better. He also has fun with football life in 2024, when college players are paid and prompts him to say his SMU team was “the first NIL.” The record is his, yet we never group him with Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders and Emmitt Smith as the greatest backs. He has a crude edge, such as his comment about the Giants and how it related to his career when he was traded by the Los Angeles Rams to the Indianapolis Colts.
“Let me tell you something. When you look at certain people who run these teams, some of these guys have as much sense as me being the president of the United States,” Dickerson said. “That’s about how much they should be running a football team. In my contract, when the Rams traded me to the Colts, did you know I couldn’t come back to the NFC for five years? They put that clause in there.”
Actually, the waiting period was two years. A bitter guy at 64. If nothing else, at least Barkley could stomp on the Giants.
“A real team would be like, ‘Oh no, you ain’t gonna get the record on us.’ But how ironic would it be for him to break the record on them, the team that let him go,” Dickerson said. “A true slap in the face.”
The Eagles must use Barkley early and often. Jalen Hurts has a concussion and will miss Sunday’s game against Dallas, forcing Kenny Pickett to start at quarterback. They are 12-3 and behind Detroit and Minnesota, both at 13-2. Would they sit Barkley against the Giants if the top NFC playoff seed is beyond them? I doubt Mr. Reverse Hurdle would agree. There is a chance he’ll break the record and help his MVP chances against Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. Not that he cares about Dickerson. He joined Hurts in giving personalized golf carts to offensive linemen.
Poor Dickerson. He might be stuck with only one league mark. “I’ve always said that the one that's going to last the longest is me setting the rookie record with 1,808,” he said. “Because you only get one shot at that. You're only a rookie once.”
How about contacting Barkley, if necessary, and congratulating him? We’ve already seen Mark Gastineau confront Brett Favre for “taking a dive” and letting Michael Strahan break his sack record. I once covered Gastineau in his phony boxing career and saw his opponent, Derrick Dukes, take a dive in the opening seconds of the first round. I was concerned he would break Favre’s neck.
We don’t have the same worries about The Dick. Do we?
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.