Miami (AFP) – Two years on from their three-point win over Philadelphia in the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs face a rematch with the Eagles but with a big difference this time. The added ingredient is Saquon Barkley, the explosive record-breaking Eagles running back and the biggest obstacle to the Chiefs winning an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl on February 9 at New Orleans.
In the 2022 season finale, Philadelphia’s main threat on the ground was quarterback Jalen Hurts, who put up 70 yards on 15 carries in a 38-35 defeat to the Chiefs. Hurts remains highly effective in the running game, but Barkley’s numbers this season are such that if the Chiefs can’t neutralise him, their path to victory becomes a narrow one. Barkley ran for 2,005 yards and 13 touchdowns with a 5.8-yard average in the regular season and he has continued his devastating form in the playoffs — adding 477 total yards and five touchdowns.
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In the NFC Championship game, the Eagles steamrollered the Washington Commanders with Barkley and Hurts rushing for three touchdowns each. The Eagles traded with the New York Giants for Barkley — a move which has transformed their offense and leaves the Chiefs with a real challenge. “He’s a great player, potential future Hall of Famer,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said. “He was tremendous at New York; he had a great year this year with the Eagles. So he has helped them, especially in the rush game, but he can catch the ball. They’ve got a quarterback that could throw the ball and two wide receivers out there that are tremendous and a couple tight ends too. So they’re fully loaded on the offensive side. He has been a great addition for them.”
Barkley ended just 100 yards short of Eric Dickerson’s NFL regular-season record of 2,105 rushing yards, set in 1984. He was denied a chance to break that record when Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni opted to rest his starters in week 18 with their playoff slot secured. If Barkley had any disappointment over that decision, he didn’t show it. “We didn’t come here and I didn’t sign here to break Eric Dickerson’s record,” he said. “We came here to win a Super Bowl.”
However, Barkley has a chance to break an arguably more significant record — he needs just 30 yards in the Super Bowl to surpass Terrell Davis’s record of 2,476 yards, in regular and post-season play, set in the 1998 season. This season, he already has an NFL record seven rushing touchdowns of 60 or more yards, including three this post-season. “This profession that we’re in, this sport that we’re in, there’s a lot of great things that we’ve accomplished so far up to this, but if we don’t get the job done next Sunday, maybe when you’re in your 30s and 40s and you look back at it, you’re going to think about how special it was, but it’s kind of going to make it feel … like you came up short,” he said.
While many of the Eagles are fuelled by that Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs in Arizona, Barkley’s memories of that night are somewhat different. The Giants are longstanding divisional rivals of the Eagles, and he admits he wanted his current team to lose. “Of course I was rooting against them… they had knocked us out of the playoffs. There was no part of me that wanted the Eagles to win, but it’s funny to look back on it now … being here with a lot of those guys that were part of that team,” he said.
Barkley says he will be just as fired up as those teammates who are out for revenge. “Even though I wasn’t part of that team … when you’re able to develop a friendship and a relationship with these guys and be able to go to war with each other, it felt like I was,” he said. “I can feel in my own body how it felt for them and see the confetti fall in the wrong color and having to walk out. Definitely don’t want to be part of that. That’s definitely something that drives us. For those guys that have been a part of it, but also just want to get the job done and knowing how it is for those guys, how it felt, and doing everything I can in my … ability to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
© 2024 AFP
