The Philadelphia Eagles tasked star running back Saquon Barkley with the largest workload of his career last season, and they did so by a sizable margin. Barkley’s 345 carries in his debut campaign with the Super Bowl champions shattered the previous career high of 295 he set with the New York Giants in 2022. Only one player, Derrick Henry, logged more single-season touches since 2012.
Players and coaches around Barkley instructed him to take some time off this offseason, too. The task is to toe the line between necessary conditioning and requisite rest.
“Everyone I trust told me basically to sit my ass down for a little bit,” Barkley said, via ESPN, after Eagles minicamp.
Barkley led the NFL in carries and turned that workload into a league-best 2,005 yards in the regular season. The Eagles’ deep run through the playoffs added to his workload, and he racked up another 91 carries for 499 yards and five scores en route to a Super Bowl victory.
“You’ve just got to be smarter, right?” Barkley said. “You have your moments where you go in there and you grind, you push it. But the majority of those days is just mobility, conditioning, doing all the things to get your body in shape to perform at a high level. It was a lot of workload [last year], but my body feels great, so that’s the most important thing.”
Workload management is also key for Barkley due to his injury history. While he showed no ill effects last season from the torn ACL he sustained in 2020, he did experience a couple of down years in the wake of his serious knee injury. Staying at full strength is of the utmost importance for a player who shoulders such a monumental burden for his offense.
Last season was Barkley’s best from a volume standpoint, but he also reached new levels of efficiency. The wear and tear of a high-usage season had no negative impacts on his per-carry numbers as he set a new personal best at 5.8 yards per attempt. His 52.5% rushing success rate was also a career high.
All signs point toward another high-volume campaign for Barkley in 2025 after the Eagles hardly reshaped their running back group. AJ Dillon signed a one-year deal to replace Kenneth Gainwell as the secondary option, and he was only ever a part-time starter during his four-year career with the Green Bay Packers. Second-year backup Will Shipley also remains in the mix but handled just 34 carries in his rookie year between the regular season and playoffs.
Go to Source
Author: Carter Bahns
June 16, 2025 | 3:10 pm
