Eagles RB Saquon Barkley chooses slide over TD on late breakaway run in wild card win: ‘No más’

Of course, this isn’t the first time Barkley’s individual success has taken a back seat to the team’s improvement.

Barkley had a good shot to break Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record entering Week 18, needing just 101 yards to eclipse the Hall of Famer’s mark of 2,105 yards. Barkley sat out the regular season finale against the Giants, a decision that was ultimately made by head coach Nick Sirianni and the 27-year-old was perfectly fine with it.

As he did then, Barkley put the team’s success above all else.

“We won. That’s the most important thing,” Barkley said. “I know a lot of people want to get into stats to see how we did and if we were rusty and how Jalen (Hurts) looked, but that’s your job. You all have to do it. I do your job , but really, in this locker room, the only thing that matters is winning football games, whether we win 45-44 or 3-0.

“That’s our mentality and that’s our mentality for the rest of the playoffs and we’re going to stick with that.”

A long TD run on Sunday would have given Philadelphia a memorable finish, but it wouldn’t have changed the outcome. Barkley still produced a career-best playoff game with 119 rushing yards, adding to what has been an incredible debut season with the Eagles.

Barkley became the ninth member of the 2,000-yard rushing club, finishing an MVP-caliber campaign of 2,005 yards with 15 total touchdowns (13 rushing, two receiving). He now sits at 2,124 rushing yards for the 2024 season, including the playoffs, which is the fifth most of any player in one season in NFL history, according to NFL Research.

The Eagles’ road back to a Super Bowl continues this weekend in the divisional round, a game to be played at Lincoln Financial Field. Who Philadelphia hosts will be decided when Vikings-Rams ends Monday night.