No More: Why Saquon wasn’t tempted to keep running against the Packers originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Saquon Barkley saw nothing but green grass in front of him, an opportunity for a 76-yard touchdown run to put an exclamation point on the Eagles’ wild-card round victory.
Instead, he slid in after 17 yards to simply end the game.
“It wasn’t tempting,” Barkley said after Sunday’s 22-10 win over the Packers. “Situational football. No more. It’s the first try, you win the game. Get the first one off, get off. It doesn’t matter”.
“No more” is the Eagles’ situational call in the 4-minute drill and Barkley listened. When the Eagles are on “no more,” it simply means that a first down wins the game; Don’t try to get any further. So when Barkley took a handoff with 1:09 left in a two-score game and broke free, he simply decided to go down after 17 yards.
As much as it bothered some of his teammates (the mic segment with DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown is hilarious) that play just shows how selfless a player Barkley is.
If Barkley had run to the house, the Eagles probably would have ended up winning 29-10 and Barkley would have finished with 178 yards on 25 carries. Instead, the Eagles won 22-10 and Barkley finished with 119. Even if Barkley hadn’t scored, he could have at least gained another 20 or 30 yards.
Barkley left up to 59 yards on the table as he chases Terrell Davis’ all-time record for rushing yards in a regular season and postseason. While Barkley sat out Week 18, missing out on a chance to break Eric Dickerson’s regular-season single-game record, he still has a shot at the one Davis set in 1998, when Davis rushed for 2,476 yards in the season. regular season and playoffs.
1. Terrell Davis (1998): 2,476
2. Terrell Davis (1997): 2,331
3. Eric Dickerson (1984): 2,212
4. Adrián Peterson (2012): 2,196
5. Saquon Barkley (2024): 2,124
If you’re wondering, Baltimore’s Derrick Henry this year ranks ninth on the all-time list with 2,107 and is hot on Barkley’s heels after Baltimore also advanced to the divisional round.
If Barkley had run home, he would be a little closer to Davis’ record.
But that drop ensured the Eagles came away with a win and didn’t put their players in harm’s way again as they advanced to the divisional round.
Head coach Nick Sirianni on Monday praised Barkley’s play and mentioned several examples of situations where “no more” has come into play before. Sirianni mentioned a 2021 Dallas Goedert play, Sydney Brown’s interception in Week 18 this year, a Bears vs. 49ers several years ago, a Browns vs. Jets a couple of years ago, a preseason game in 2021.
It’s clear how much thought goes into all of these situations and Sirianni was proud that Barkley just went down.
“So that’s something we practice,” Sirianni said. “That’s something we talked about. That’s something Saquon asked before he even entered. ‘Hey, aren’t we over?’ I say, ‘Yes, yes, we are.’ That means taking the first try and going down. He did it perfectly. It will be a clip that we will show, just like we showed the Dallas one, and like we show all the others forever.
“You do that for the exact reasons I said. Now, when you go up three points at that point, it may not make that much of a difference. We understand it. …Don’t mess with things like that. You have the opportunity to kneel and you take advantage of those opportunities.”
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