The Eagles new running back is well aware that pretty much everyone is watching him with enormous expectations, knowing his star quality just might be what this beloved team needs. Yet 27-year-old Saquon Barkley carries those expectations proudly, defiantly, and with a strength that makes you excited for what’s to come. So we all watch. Sometimes with our eyes closed and fingers crossed. But also with an exciting tinge of hope. Eagles Insider Dave Spadaro spoke with the young sports star about the past, the future, and yeah, even the rocky start to this year’s season. But no worries, with Barkley in your corner, many say, all is good. Especially on the field.
Shortly after signing with the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL’s free agency period and long before making his wowowowow debut – scoring three touchdowns – in a victory over the Green Bay Packers, running back Saquon Barkley enters the team’s locker room at Lincoln Financial Field for the very first time. He and quarterback Jalen Hurts are taking part in a function with Eagles’ Corporate Partners at Lincoln Financial Field, a get-to-know-you sort of thing, and it’s pointed out to Barkley just where his new gameday locker is located.
I look at everything as a competitor, like it’s a challenge… I just want to be one of the great people here.”
He looks to his left. He smiles.
“That looks good to me,” he says. “In the middle of the room. In the middle of all of my teammates. It’s good to know where my new home is.”
His new home has welcomed him with open arms and kisses and loud ovations and Barkley, in his seventh season in the league after six with the New York Giants, has accepted every bit of it. He is as authentic as they come, a blessed athlete who understands his place in the world and the opportunity he has to thrive.
“What is important to me,” Barkley says months later, “is proving myself and competing in everything I do. I love everything about the game of football – the teamwork, the way we all have to rely on each other to have success, the idea that you have to give up your ego, the hard work, how physical it is, all of that.
“My family is first for me [Barkley is the father of two with his longtime girlfriend] and everything I do is a reflection for them. You go through this life, and you have your legacy, right? Your family, your friends, the relationships that you make. It is all so important for me.”
The Eagles signed Barkley in March and since that time he has been besieged with attention and adulation. His jersey No. 26 is among the top five in the league in sales. Requests for his time are out of control. The fans have adored his every move, beginning with when he was introduced to nearly 50,000 Eagles fans at the stadium in a public practice.
Practice. Not game.
“I’ve felt the love every step of the way,” says Barkley, who grew up in Coplay, Pa. “That means a lot to me. I came to a new team because I’m closer to home, because the Eagles have a lot of things to offer me, and I felt like they really wanted me. And this fan base, it’s amazing. It’s everything all rolled into one.”
Superstars in sports come in a variety of flavors – some are very public and show their life to the world through social media and the way they interact with the public. Some are shy, reticent to allow anyone in. Some are reluctant to embrace the role-model ideal, instead living life one day at a time and enjoying it all and rarely reaching out.
Barkley is different. He’s the genuine article who invested heavily in his own Foundation and a Center Of Excellence, both aimed at helping underserved youth find their path. Twice while a Giant he was the team’s nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, the NFL’s most prestigious off-the-field honor.
“I just try to understand the world and give back where I can,” he says. “I understand where I am and the place I have. This is an important platform for me and any chance I can help others, I’m going to do it.”
There is also the matter of excelling on the football field, and Barkley is in a masterclass there. The second overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, Barkley has been a Pro Bowl performer despite injuries that have sidetracked seasons, even with a team that struggled to gain traction offensively.
Now he is an Eagle, and he has the world in front of him. Upon joining the Eagles, it was important that Barkley find his footing in the locker room, so he made sure to touch all corners of the roster. He made golf dates with his teammates. He challenged the wide receiver room to a footrace. He ate lunches and dinners with the guys to get to know what they were all about. He laughed and joked and became, according to players, “the funniest guy on the team.”
“He’s a great guy and just a normal, caring man,” wide receiver Britain Covey says. “We’ll go out there and play golf, and let’s just say he isn’t the best one on the golf course, and that’s the coolest thing. Here is this star football player learning the game and asking questions and talking trash and having fun, he’s someone you want to spend time with. He gets along with everyone.”
Integrating himself into the team culture was of paramount importance for Barkley. He didn’t arrive as a star. He became an Eagle and is one of the guys.
One who happens to be a beast on the football field.
“He is a guy you want as a teammate in every way, every day. I look at that guy and I’m glad he’s on my team.” – Jalen Hurts
“I look at everything as a competitor, like it’s a challenge,” Barkley says. “To be great at something, you have to work at it. Nothing is going to just fall into your lap. Friendships, relationships, sports, it all goes together. Coming here, an established team, a lot of great players, I just want to be one of the great people here. There is a level of expectation here that was important to uphold, and so having the guys like me and respect me, I knew I had to earn that.”
“Take playing golf. I’m addicted to it. I think anyone who plays, anyone who is a competitor, feels that way. One day you can be great and another day, it gets you. But you are out there and you’re free and you can release anything that’s in your mind. Sports to me, has always been part of my life. And I haven’t always been great. Basketball, I was a role player, and I did it really well. Golf is humbling and that’s something everyone needs. You need to be humbled to realize greatness.”
Later that week, just days after discussing the role of humility in his life, Barkley stood at that same locker in Lincoln Financial Field that he admired for the first time a month earlier. Only this time, the audience was dozens of reporters and cameras wanting to know why and how he could have possibly dropped a third-and-3 pass from Hurts that, had he executed the routine play, would have clinched a win on national television over the Atlanta Falcons.
Barkley dropped the pass – a catch he makes 999 out of 1,000 times – and Atlanta took advantage and put together a last-minute drive to send the Eagles to a devastating defeat. Instead of skulking out of the locker room without comment, Barkley faced the heat from the media.
“I can sit here and complain and be upset about it, or I could be a professional athlete and go back to the drawing board and take the lick and move on to get better from it,” Barkley says. “I’ve made that play multiple times. I missed that play before, too. I just gotta be better. I let my team down. I gotta man up to it. I gotta own it, which I’m doing. I promise those guys in that locker room that I’ll be better from it.”
That, in a nutshell, is Barkley. On top of the mountain or in the valley after a crushing defeat, Barkley delivered the message: He’s real. He’s human. He is a star who is going to make a mistake and own up to it, and that’s what makes him so special.
“He is a guy you want as a teammate in every way, every day,” Hurts says. “I look at that guy and I’m glad he’s on my team. I’m learning from him every day and I’m going to be better because of it.”
That’s the lesson of Saquon Barkley: A football standout and a human superstar who believes in the greater good, who spreads the credit when good things happen and who takes the blame when times are tough. You won’t find many people, much less star athletes, like that in the real world.
Eagles Insider Dave Spadaro has covered every Eagles game since 1987 and is seen and heard throughout the year on television, radio and Eagles coverage everywhere. You can hear his Eagles Live Podcast on iTunes.
