Eagles

NFL Free Agency: Eagles, Saquon Barkley Agree To Deal

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Paul Bowman
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Paul Bowman Sports Editor

Penn State Great Valley MBA, Penn State Berks Undergrad, Eagle Scout and Vigil Honor, IT Service Manager. I joined Sports Talk Philly in 2017 and root for all the Philly teams (as well as their minor league counter parts).

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Sports Editor

Published11 Mar 2024

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Nolan Smith Trails Yet Another Runner (Saquon Barkley)

The Eagles seem to be landing all their top targets.

They’ve already landed perhaps their top target in the up-and-coming edge rusher Bryce Huff.

Now, it’s reported by Ian Rapoport that they’ve landed superstar running back Saquon Barkley.

Barkley is from the south-east PA area and famously played his college ball at Penn State, so a large portion of his friends and family are in the area and root for the Eagles.

It’s no question that Barkley is an incredibly effective weapon and he should thrive far more in an Eagles offense with top offensive linemen and top receiving targets than he did in the Giants offense that lacked any other consistent standout talent around him.

It may be a stark departure from the Eagles typical idea to not value running backs in general, but the details of the deal have not been made public yet. Reports indicated that Barkley was willing to take less to play with the offensive line in Philly that would also bring him closer to his friends.

Barkley has three 1000 yard seasons under his belt and brings an effective blocker for the blitz as well as pass catcher. He can do it all. The only times he hasn’t been able to rush for 1,000 yards are seasons when he was limited in playing time by injuries.

The Eagles seem to be taking a risk that Barkley will see better health in an offense that he isn’t required to be on the field and getting the ball every other snap in order to keep offensive drives going.

Update: The deal is currently reported at three years, 37.75 million.  That’d put the AAV at around $12.5M, which is the fourth highest in the league. It’s hard to argue that a healthy Saquon isn’t a top-five back, but it’s also surprising that the Eagles would commit that much money to the position and guarantee the reported $26 million at that.