ClutchPoints
It’s hard to look at Saquon Barkley’s 2025 season with the Philadelphia Eagles and consider it anything other than a disappointment.
Now granted, he hasn’t been bad per se, he will still finish out the 2025 NFL season with well over 1,000 yards, maybe as high as the mid 1,200s, but after going for over 2,000 yards in one of the single greatest running back seasons in NFL history, ranking at the lower end of the top-10 isn’t the outcome many expected when Howie Roseman handed the Penn State product a raise heading into his second season in midnight green.
Fortunately, after taking a back seat in the Eagles’ offense during the month of November, with his stats pretty much falling across the board during the Birds’ losing streak, Barkley has found his sea legs in the month of December, rushing for at least 100 yards in two of the team’s three games while averaging a very impressive 5.3 yards per carry on the ground.
After only recording one game with a rushing attempt longer than 19 yards through the first 12 games of the season, Barkley has gone for 40-plus twice in three weeks, going for 52 against the Los Angeles Chargers on MNF, and for 48 against the Washington Commanders in Week 16.
Is Barkley back? Has he unlocked that x-factor that his game has been missing all season long, or did he simply get lucky on two great runs, with his average over the three games dropping below 4.0 yards per carry with those two runs removed? For the Eagles’ sake, let’s hope it’s the former, as it’s clear Nick Sirianni still wants to be a run-first team, even if the team’s attempts haven’t directly correlated to production due to so many sub-3.0-yard runs.
Fortunately, Barkley and the Eagles have a chance to really pick up some ground in the penultimate game of the regular season, with their opponent, the Buffalo Bills, sporting one of the worst rushing defenses in the NFL.
With 16 weeks of action in the books, the Bills rank 29th in rushing defense, allowing 5.4 yards per carry and 24 total rushing touchdowns since September, not-so-good for the 31st and 32nd-best marks in the NFL. Through 15 games of action, Sean McDormitt’s unit has held only four of their opponents to less than 100 yards on the ground, with four, the Baltimore Ravens, the Atlanta Falcons, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the New England Patriots all breaking the 200 rushing yard mark.
To make matters worse for Buffalo, they will be without two defensive tackles when they take on the Eagles, with DaQuon Jones and Jordan Phillips both being ruled out for the game, which, when coupled with their best defensive tackle, Ed Oliver, already landing on IR, leaves the team rather light in the middle of their defense.
Now granted, there have been games where the Eagles have faced off...
