Saquon Barkley did just have the single greatest full season by a running back in NFL history, which is pretty undeniable. He rushed for 2,504 yards, breaking Terrell Davis’ record of 2,478 yards in 1998.
That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s the best running back in NFL history, and it’s the same reason it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s the best running back in Philadelphia Eagles history.
The Eagles have had some truly unbelievable running backs, and Saquon Barkley is up there with the best of them, but how far up is he?
Saquon Barkley’s 2024 season punts him in rare company
To be the best running back, especially for a team, you have to both be great and stick around for a long time. The Eagles have had some running backs that have had some pretty incredible longevity, and Saquon’s single amazing year doesn’t necessarily outweigh the fact that it was just one season.
I’m not going to go past 30 years for these rankings. Steve Van Buren is in the Eagles Hall of Fame, but he stopped playing football 75 years ago… so… you know, it makes sense not to throw him in with modern running backs. It was a different game and all that jazz.
For reference, in the past 30 years, the Eagles have had 60-ish running backs touch the ball in some capacity. This list is the elite of the elite.
4. Duce Staley
The Eagles drafted Duce Staley in the third round of the 1997 draft, and he was with the team for seven seasons (through 2003). His three 1,000-yard rushing seasons tied him with Ricky Watters and Wilbert Montgomery for the second most 1,000-yard rushing seasons in Eagles history.
He rushed for 4,807 yards, which is good, but he also had a total of 2,498 receiving yards, giving him a total of 7,305 scrimmage yards as an Eagle. That’s pretty impressive.
He played a couple of pretty significant roles in the Eagles franchise as well. He was the running back that bridged the gap between the Ray Rhodes head coaching era and the Andy Reid coaching era.
Staley was hired onto the Eagles staff in 2010, became a special teams coach in 2011, and then the running backs coach from 2013 until he left after the 2020 season.
Not only was he a coach when the Eagles won their first Super Bowl, but he also bridged two head coaching gaps: the Andy Reid era to the Chip Kelly era and then the Chip Kelly era to the Doug Pederson era. It must have been tough to sell yourself as a viable running backs coach after that 2015 DeMarco Murray season, so he gets points for being a good salesman, too.
3. Saquon Barkley
March 13, 2024, is a day that changed your life because that was the day the Eagles signed Saquon Barkley in free agency.
Again, his 2024 season was unbelievable. On top of his 2,504 rushing yards, he had 14 games with over 100 rushing yards. There was a stretch where he had three straight games, a stretch of four straight games, and then a stretch (minus Week 18, where he didn’t play) of five straight games where he hit that mark.
He also had three one-and-dones, where he ran for a touchdown on the first play of a drive. Two of which he did in the postseason.
Listen, Saquon Barkley is awesome. There’s no denying that. It’s just that he has only been with the Eagles for one season. Granted, that season was truly amazing, and he was the focal point of the Eagles’ offense in a Super Bowl-winning year.
The two guys ahead of him have longevity, and that’s something that you have to take into account. It’s not just that these other two guys were running backs for the Eagles longer; it also that they were still insanely good.
Saquon will work his way up this ranking when he stacks more years, but as of right now, he’s number three.
Being the franchise’s third-best running back in the past 30 years after playing one season is incredible.
2. Brian Westbrook
The Eagles drafted Brian Westbrook in the third round of the 2002 draft, and he was with the team for eight seasons (through 2009). In those eight seasons, he racked up 5,995 rushing yards, 37 rushing touchdowns, 3,790 receiving yards, and 29 receiving touchdowns. That’s a grand total of 9,785 scrimmage yards and 66 touchdowns.
He holds the franchise records for career scrimmage yards, career scrimmage yards in the playoffs (925), career rushing yards in the playoffs (591), single postseason yards per rush (7.79), and single postseason rushing yards per game (128.5). That’s five records.
He’s also tied the record for most touchdowns in a single game (4) and most punt return touchdowns in a season (2).
Westbrook was the punt returner on the Eagles' 75th-anniversary team, and he was inducted into the Eagles Hall of Fame in 2015.
He was a huge part of the 2003 and 2004 teams, the best two consecutive teams in franchise history, and then went on to play for five more seasons where he was somewhere between ‘pretty good’ and ‘amazing.’
1. LeSean McCoy
The Eagles drafted Shady McCoy in the second round of the 2009 draft, and he was with the Eagles for six seasons (through 2014). He put up a whopping 6,792 rushing yards, 44 rushing touchdowns, 2,282 receiving yards, and 10 receiving touchdowns.
In his first year as a starter, he ran for over 1,000 yards, and then he did that three more times, which is a franchise record. In 2011, he led the NFL in 20+ yard runs (14), touchdowns (17), and had the fourth-most rushing yards (1,309).
2013 was his best season, and up until Saquon Barkley in 2024, it was the best season an Eagles running back ever had. McCoy set the franchise record in rushing yards at 1,607 yards, set the single-game record at 217 rushing yards against the Lions in the Snow Bowl, and averaged 100.4 yards per game. It was simply unreal.
When you’re talking about Eagles running backs in modern football, Shady McCoy is undoubtedly at the top of the list. It’s only right that the day he was inducted into the Eagles Hall of Fame was the day that Saquon Barkley jumped over a guy backward. Football is poetic sometimes.
It’s going to be hard for there to be an Eagles running back who is better for longer than Shady McCoy was. If it wasn’t for Chip Kelly trading him away for a banana peel and a half-lit cigarette, there’s a chance that he could’ve made it onto the Eagles' Mount Rushmore.