The Philadelphia Eagles made a huge splash this offseason when they signed running back Saquon Barkley. The Eagles now have one of the strongest groups of skill position players in the NFL with Barkley joining A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert.
What made the move even more shocking was that Barkley left the New York Giants. Poaching a player of that caliber from a division rival is a win in several ways.
Fans are going to get an in-depth look at just what went down that led to Barkley leaving the Giants and joining the Eagles. The Giants are on the new version of Hard Knocks: Offseason this year.
Barkley departing is one of the biggest storylines of the 2024 NFL offseason. In the first episode of the series, there were several clips focused on the star running back.
As if the Eagles needed anymore motivation when playing against their NFC East rivals, they now have some. Brown said he will “do everything in my power to make sure you get yours fam,” referring to a video that has circulated from the episode.
The video in question is of the Giants’ brain trust talking about the potential of placing the franchise tag on Barkley and how much value he would have on the trade market. They didn’t believe there would be much.
As a result, the franchise tag was not used on Barkley. He sit the open market and opted to sign with the Eagles, agreeing to a three-year, $37,750,000 million contract.
A player of his caliber certainly deserved a multi-year contract. But, data shows that paying running backs that kind of money will assuredly backfire as their production falls off a cliff once they reach late 20s.
Given how many needs the Giants had on their roster, they would have been hard-pressed to keep Barkley, especially with offers such as the one the Eagles gave him on the table.
It was a major change in philosophy for Philadelphia as well. General manager Howie Roseman has not been shy about his stance on paying running backs, but swerved to steal Barkley away from the Giants.
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