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Saquon Barkley decided to only watch from the field as Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown and the rest of his Eagles teammates celebrated and hoisted the NFC championship trophy on the stage.
He had to find his family first.
“That was the only thing on my mind,” Barkley said. “I just wanted to have that moment with my family.”
Barkley sprinted 60 yards for a touchdown on his first carry of the NFC championship game and the Eagles running back never looked back — only ahead to the Super Bowl.
“I know I’ve never been there,” Barkley said. “But I’ve been there so many times in my head.”
Barkley finished with 118 yards rushing and three touchdowns — to roaring “MVP! MVP!” chants each time — and led the Eagles to a 55-23 win over the Washington Commanders in the NFC title game on Sunday.
His 2,005 yards rushing in the regular season left him only 101 shy of breaking Eric Dickerson’s record of 2,105 in 1984 with the Los Angeles Rams. Including the playoffs, Barkley extended an NFL record Sunday with his seventh rushing touchdown of 60-plus yards in a season.
Again, postseason included, Barkley is only 30 yards shy of breaking Terrell Davis’ mark of 2,476 total yards rushing set in the 1998 season when the Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl.
Unlike the regular-season finale when he lost his chance at passing Dickerson, there’s no sitting out the Super Bowl for the AP NFL MVP finalist.
“If Saquon gets into the second level, third level, now it’s, ‘Hey, can you tackle this guy?’ He’s hard to tackle,” coach Nick Sirianni said. “They don’t give me a vote for MVP, but I know who my vote would — that’s probably why they don’t give me a vote, because I would vote for Saquon.”