Saquon Barkley will not rush for 2,000 yards in 2025, and that has nothing to do with a hangover from the Super Bowl or a Madden curse.
More than a century of history hinders the star of Philadelphia Eagles, who became the ninth member of the 2K club in 2024. It is a club with zero two members.
The first eight players to reach the milestone have missed 28 games combined in their follow -up campaigns and have an average of 1,080 yards on the ground this season – a beautiful total, that’s for sure, but barely halfway through the immortality of the NFL.
Barkley is only 28 years old and still at his peak, but he should survive another heavy workload after having led the league with a career summit of 345 races in 16 games last season. He will undoubtedly meet more stacked boxes and other playing plans targeting races, and Philadelphia will be confronted with the fourth most scrambled calendar in the NFL (percentage of victories of the opponents .561 in 2024).
These are some of the factual physical barriers on its way, to say nothing about the legendary road roadblocks aforementioned as a reigning champion of the Super Bowl Lix and “Madden NFL 26” cover model.
Even Barkley cannot make so many obstacles.
Terrell Davis, the only player apart from Barkley to run on 2,000 yards and lift the Lombardi trophy during the same season, succeeded in his double Denver with 2,008 yards in the 1998 regular season and a Broncos victory over the Falcons of Atlanta in the Super Bowl XXXIII.
In 1999, after the retreat of the Broncos quarter, John Elway, Davis played only four games and won 211 yards on the field – the brand at the bottom of the next season for 2K members. Davis rushed to only 1,194 more yards in his career after his MVP campaign in 1998, retired before the 2002 season after a last “High High Salute”.
The colleague of the temple of renown Barry Sanders, who, at 29, became the oldest member of the club with 2,053 yards for the Lions of Detroit in 1997, came closest to the creation of consecutive seasons 2K with 1,491 in his farewell walk in 1998.
Congratulations to the members of the Eric Dickerson club, Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson and Jamal Lewis, who all run on at least 1,000 yards the year after having broken the 2K barrier. Dickerson still holds a season’s record in a single season with 2,105 yards for Los Angeles Rams in 1984.
Derrick Henry got closer to the publication of non -consecutive seasons of 2000 yards, hiding at 1,921 yards in his first year with the Ravens of Baltimore in 2024 after having amassed 2027 Yards with the Titans of Tennessee in 2020. Henry, for what it is worth, is the only man in the history of the NFL with two seasons 1,900 yards.
Adam “Happy Gilmore” Sandler promised to launch Henry in one of his films if he puts 2000 on a band in 2025.
If Barkley arrived there in 2025, philly fans will demand a main role in the next remake “Rocky” – or at least a cameo behind the Paddy’s pub bar on “is always sunny in Philadelphia”.
Cribal warning: The crossing of Gridiron Glory on the silver screen has already occurred, by the inaugural member of this club, in fact. If only Orenthal James Simpson was still best known for his turn in the films “Naked Gun” or for having accumulated 2,003 yards in 14 games with the Buffalo Bills in 1973.
Barkley recently declared that he had never fled 2,000 yards last season, that “it just happened”, admitting that it would be quite cool “to start again. But that’s not what motivates him.
“The thing that motivates me is the same thing that has led me since I was a little child, and I said it since I entered the League (and) I don’t think so in a arrogant way, (but) I want to be the best ball carrier to play, or at least one of the best half-dos to have ever played,” he said.
“I don’t think there is a way to prove who is the best.”
In fact, we can think about 2000 ways, but that does not happen. Not this year anyway.