The Philadelphia Eagles dominated opponents en route to winning Super Bowl LIX over the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. General manager Howie Roseman put together a juggernaut of a roster which was capped off by the addition of running back Saquon Barkley last offseason.
The former New York Giants back made an immediate impact and won the league's rushing crown with a career-high 2,005 yards. On Thursday, Barkley felt confident he and his teammates put up one of the greatest performances in NFL history in 2024.
"I firmly believe, when you look at our team last year, we're a top five team of all time," he told the Exciting Mics podcast, hosted by Eagles teammates Cooper DeJean and Reed Blankenship.
That's a lofty title to claim, even with the dominant performance the Eagles put forth in the Super Bowl. Philadelphia started the year 2-2 but, to their credit, things got a lot better from there on out.
"If you really look at the season outside the first four games, like it was belt to ass how dominant you guys were on defense, and how dominant our offense and special team [was,]" he continued. "People don't realize how great of a team that actually was."
Where do the 2024 Eagles rank among NFL's greatest teams of all time?
Can Barkley really declare last year's Eagles one of the best teams to ever compete in the NFL? If so, that would mean they are equal to the likes of the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins, the 1984 San Francisco 49ers, the 1985 Chicago Bears and the nearly perfect 2007 New England Patriots, among others.
It seems really hard to believe the 2024 Eagles should be admitted into that pantheon of greats but that could also be a side effect of recency bias. Philadelphia sports radio host Bill Colarulo backed up Barkley's claim on Friday with some pretty insane facts.
"The 2024 Philadelphia Eagles had the most wins ever in the history of the NFL with 18. That ties the 2007 Patriots - who did not win the Super Bowl, by the way - the 1985 Chicago Bears and 1984 San Francisco 49ers," Colarulo laid out. "The won 16 of their final 17 games to win the Super Bowl."
Colarulo admitted those squads played one less game than Philadelphia due to modern schedule expansion but that's not where the impressiveness ended.
The Eagles recorded the most points in the history of the NFL playoffs (145) and the most rushing yards (regular season and playoffs combined). They also posted a plus-68 point differential, which was the best since 2002 and were the first squad since the 1970 merger to boast the league's leading rusher and the No. 1 defense.
For as ugly as some may claim the team played, with even a significant portion of Philadelphia fans calling for head coach Nick Sirianni's job, the numbers don't lie. This Eagles squad was something else.
"I think we all just bought in," Barkley continued. "You hear like the outside noise and expectation, like we didn't care how it looked we cared about was winning the ball games and when you have the talent, skill that we have on our team mixed with the coaches, we all play together the way we played ... teams really stood no chance."
This debate is only getting started but for now, it seems Barkley's argument has some legs. Perhaps even some legs akin to his own.