WITH SAQUON, HURTS, TUSH PUSHES AND A COOL 55: WILL THE EAGLES WIN IT ALL?
A “pretty strong cocktail” is what Philadelphia brings to the Super Bowl, where the Barkley signing is legendary while he supports an injured quarterback and watches the ridiculous Brotherly Shove
And to think Joe Schoen’s right-hand man asked the question that would transform the NFL season. “When you're in your room at night, when you're by yourself, are you like, ‘I wouldn't mind if this kid bounced?’ ’’ asked Brandon Brown, assistant general manager of the New York Giants, about Saquon Barkley.
To bounce meant the fan-beloved running back would leave town and join, say, the Philadelphia Eagles. Schoen, the general manager, said this to Barkley in a meeting he will regret the rest of his career: “Just mulling over this, the right thing to do is let you test the market to see what your value is.”
There it was, arbiters of sports history, a decision that prompted one of the smartest manuevers ever made by a front office upon Schoen’s broiling pity. There it was, a laugh-heartily move that led the Eagles to the NFC championship on Sunday. Barkley signed a $37.75 million contract just down the highway and continues to alter how we value ball-carriers when, so foolishly, they’ve been understated in the marketplace. Look up in the big game, and there was Barkley again, veering left, running through a gaping crevice and bashing past Washington defenders for a 60-yard touchdown. Just a week earlier, he ran for scores of 78 and 62 yards against the Los Angeles Rams.
Would you like to do the accounting? Hand him the ball, sit back and watch him run controllably through opponents who realize he’s coming and blasting. He scored three more times in a 55-23 thrashing of the Commanders. No team has scored more points on a championship weekend. May we present him with a league MVP trophy he will not win?
“I ain’t gonna lie. I tried to downplay it in my head, but it’s just amazing,” Barkley said in the frenzy of Lincoln Financial Field. “The Super Bowl. I’ve always dreamed about it. But the dream isn’t just getting there. The dream was to win it. That is where the mindset is at.”
His owner, Jeffrey Lurie, seconded the thought. “It’s kind of expected, I think. It’s a pretty strong cocktail,” he said of another title. “We’re there to win it.”
Barkley served to remove pressure from his quarterback, Jalen Hurts, who played with a left knee injury and settled down by hitting critical passes and scoring three times on the ground. Twice, he did so on a mesmerizing, call-the-competition-committee ploy that should kill the stupid Brotherly Shove. The Eagles popularized the gut bomb and turned center Jason Kelce into a late-night TV star, someone whose height suddenly dropped to “5-10” — Tom Brady said it during the broadcast — after he spearheaded the Rugby-style Tush Push into the end zone.
Sorry. Get rid of it. The second-down play lasted several minutes as the Commanders kept jumping offside, with linebacker Frankie Luvu leaping over everyone in a basketball stunt. Commissioner Roger Goodell considered dumping the Tush Push, but it was not banned. “I don't have the energy to care about whether it gets banned or not,” Kelce said. “We're going to run it because we're good at it and it's effective.” It’s so effective, it will dominate discussions before the Super Bowl. Can the Chiefs stop it as they try to win for the third straight year?
There was Nick Sirianni, the coach who almost lost his job last offseason, laughing as players doused him with Gatorade. There was Lurie, hugging Sirianni instead of preparing walking papers. There was general manager Howie Roseman, who pulled off the deal for Barkley. And on the other side, Jayden Daniels peered at a snapshot he might live himself someday, as the Philly rowdies prepared to storm 4,000 bars and pubs. “Fly, Eagles Fly,” they chanted. Look at all the love brought by Saquon, via I-95.
The ultimate game remains for Barkley, No. LIX, and someone might want to explain why he makes $37.7 million and Hurts makes $255 million. The star player the next two weeks will be another godlike quarterback, and the opposing rusher will take a back seat. Are we sure about that approach? We aren’t far from grouping Barkley with Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Eric Dickerson and the all-time positional greats. The next game might put him over the top. With 118 yards on 15 carries, Barkley is about to become the league’s leader in rushing yards and yards from scrimmage, surpassing Terrell Davis for the regular season and playoffs. In the process, Saquon continued to one-up Charles Barkley in the eyes of sporting America. Charles who?
“It’s 11-man football to stop this man,” Commanders defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. said.
“It’s been an unbelievable season,” Eli Manning said of a former Giant. “Very deserving of all the success he’s had.”
Two seasons after losing a heartbreaker to Kansas City, the Eagles are right back, with Barkley and Hurts and an abysmal Brotherly Shove. At one point, referee Shawn Hochuli announced another unsportsmanlike conduct could lead to a touchdown being awarded. “Oh my God,” said Brady, who might have been late for a meeting with new Raiders coach Pete Carroll. The football was about a millimeter from the goal line before Hurts scored. See Rule 12, Section 3, Article 2 of the NFL rulebook.
“How about our quarterback? How about our quarterback! He’s a stud,” said Sirianni, who fought with Hurts last season and watched him hit 20 of 28 passes for 246 yards and a touchdown. “I knew he was going to play that way. I knew it. Don’t doubt him. All he does is win.”
“All he does is win!” repeated Fox’s Terry Bradshaw, who won the Super Bowl four times, I believe.
Is a cocktail of Barkley and Hurts enough? In New Orleans? Doesn’t Saquon celebrate his 28th birthday that day? We liked Daniels. We liked Dan Snyder moving away to London. We liked D.C. beyond politics. Still, there is nothing to hate about the Eagles, either.
Except the Tush Push.
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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.