Eric Dickerson rooting against Saquon Barkley breaking his NFL rushing record

Saquon Barkley is on pace for one of the greatest seasons an NFL running back has put together in the last half-century. But not everyone is rooting for the former Penn State football and current Philadelphia Eagles star to have a historic conclusion to his 2024 campaign.

With two games left to play, Barkley has amassed 1,838 rushing yards this year – 268 shy of the NFL single-season record set by Pro Football Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson with the Los Angeles Rams in 1984. But Dickerson doesn’t expect, nor is he rooting for, Barkley to eclipse the 2,105 yards needed to break his record.

“I don’t think he’ll break it,” Dickerson told Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. “But if he breaks it, he breaks it. Do I want him to break it? Absolutely not. I don’t pull no punches on that. But I’m not whining about it.

“He had 17 games to do it? Hey, football is football. That’s the way I look at it. If he’s fortunate to get over 2,000 yards and get the record, it’s a great record to have.”

Dickerson broke the previous record, held by OJ Simpson, in 16 games. Simpson rushed for 2,003 in 14 games during the 1973 season. The NFL expanded to 17 regular season games starting in 2021.

“I like him,” Dickerson said of Barkley. “But I tend to like big backs. He’s not a big back like I was. He’s elusive, he’s tough, he runs hard, he can catch the ball out of the backfield. I think he’s a great player.”

Will Saquon Barkley make history this season?

© Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

Philadelphia, which has already clinched a playoff spot at 12-3, faces the 7-8 Dallas Cowboys on Sunday and the 2-13 New York Giants in the regular-season finale. The question remains as to how much the Eagles will utilize Barkley, who is averaging 122.5 rushing yards per game, over the next two weeks.

But even if he doesn’t topple Dickerson’s record, Saquon Barkley still has the chance to join an exclusive club. With 162 more yards, the ex-Penn State football standout would become just the ninth running back in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a single season.

“We all knew, right, that, given the opportunity and put in a favorable situation, he’d have a chance to maximize it,” James Franklin said last month of Barkley’s play with Philadelphia. “I think the other thing with him that the Eagles are learning, and I talked to them about, [he] is just as good of a player, he is just as good, if not a better, teammate. And that’s unusual.

“So to have that type of guy in your locker room and that type of leader and that type of presence on your team, it’s a force multiplier in a lot of ways. So, I’m not surprised.”

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