What's wrong with Saquon Barkley? These stats explain problems with Eagles' run game originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Saquon Barkley had the best year of his life in 2024. He ran for 2,005 yards.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt hasn't been the same in 2025 for the Philadelphia Eagles' star running back.
Entering the Eagles' Black Friday game, Barkley has run for 684 yards on 185 carries.
The Eagles' whole offense has struggled more on the ground and through the air, despite having a solid record.
At least as far as Barkley is concerned, there are a few things that help make sense of it.
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What's wrong with Saquon Barkley?
There are two numbers that sum up what hasn't gone right for Barkley.
The first is yards before contact.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn 2024, Barkley ran for 3.8 yards before contact.
This season, that mark is at 2.3 yards per contact.
Barkley's career average is 2.5 yards before contact, so last season was more of an outlier. The offensive line created so many holes for Barkley.
This season, there hasn't been as much running room, which has made things tough on Saquon.
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The other stat that is interesting is the broken tackle metric tracked by Pro Football Reference.
Barkley has only broken a a tackle once for every 30.8 carries this season. Last season's mark was once every 18.2 attempts.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThis season's broken tackle rate for Barkley is the second-worst of his career.
So a combination of Barkley having less room to run, and Barkley getting away from less of those tackling attempts, has hurt his cause.
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