McCaffrey has averaged 19.8 touches in 91 career games.
A reporter pointed out to Roseman that McCoy’s contract extension with the Eagles came at the age of 24 when he was three years younger than Barkley is now. As pointed out in this space previously, Barkley will play the entirety of next season at 27 unless the Eagles reach the Super Bowl. Then he would play the biggest game of his life on his 28th birthday in New Orleans.
“The player trains unbelievably and he’s a freak,” Roseman said. “You see that in his testing numbers, in his body and in his GPS speed. We believe in the player and we think based on the resources and where you can put the resources and based on the resources that go at that amount in the league that this made a lot of sense for us.”
The Eagles were also attracted by Barkley’s YAC (yards after contact) numbers. He has been in the top 10 in that category is four of his six seasons in the league.
According to fantasypros.com, the two-time Pro Bowl running back finished ninth in the league in that department last season with 453. McCaffrey led the league with 573. D’Andre Swift, the Eagles’ lead running back last season who signed with the Bears, was 20th with 359 yards after contact.
Barkley was fourth in the NFL in yards after contact in 2022 with 564. He was first as a rookie in 2018 with 736 and eighth the following year with 605. He only played two games in 2020 because of a torn ACL. He had a disappointing 2021 season, but bounced back with an outstanding 2022 to lead the Giants to the playoffs.
Combine Barkley’s ability to break tackles with the Eagles’ talented offensive line and it should be something to see. It might even look like the Christian McCaffrey Show that has been so popular out in Northern California the last two seasons.
The Eagles would have drafted Christian McCaffrey if he had slipped to them with the 14th overall pick in the 2017 draft. Instead he went off the board at No. 8 to the Carolina Panthers.
They thought McCaffrey was a special enough running back to be that high of a first-round pick even though the position was in the process of being devalued across the NFL.
That subject came up Monday because general manager Howie Roseman feels the same way about Saquon Barkley, the free-agent running back he signed earlier this month.
Roseman, in fact, thinks the perception of how the Eagles view running backs is just a bit off base.
“I would actually say our history is a little different than what is actually being portrayed,” Roseman said in his first public comments since the Eagles signed Barkley. “I was in the front office when we paid Brian Westbrook. In 2012, LeSean McCoy got a $9-million-dollar-a-year contract when I was the GM.
“I think ... it’s hard to find special players at any position (and) we think Saquon is a special player. We think he’s a special person and so when you’re trying to find those guys, they’re hard to find, especially on the open market.”
Barkley, 27, received a three-year deal worth a base value of $37.75 million because the Eagles see him as an every-down back who can run, catch and block. They see him as a player that, if healthy, will have the ball in his hands 300 times or more next season.
“There are not a lot of other skill-position players that are touching the ball that many times and have that effect,” Roseman said.
To that point, there were only six running backs that touched the ball 300 times a season ago and McCaffrey topped the list with 339. The others were Tampa Bay’s Rachaad White (336), Jacksonville’s Travis Etienne (325), Cincinnati’s Joe Mixon (309), Tennessee’s Derrick Henry (308) and Dallas’ Tony Pollard (307).
Interestingly, three of the six, like Barkley, will be with new teams next season.
Barkley wasn’t on the 300-touch list last season, but he missed three games early in the year with a high ankle sprain. He finished the season with 288 touches in 14 games, giving him an average of 20.6 touches per game. He has averaged 20.1 touches in 74 career games and he exceeded 300 touches during two of his six seasons with the Giants.
Eagles GM Howie Roseman talked about the signing of Saquon Barkley at the NFL Owners Meetings Monday in Orlando, Fla.Chris Franklin _ NJ Advance Media
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