Philadelphia Eagles General Manager Howie Roseman won’t get fined for “tampering” with former Giant running back Saquon Barkley today by convincing him to bring his talents to Philadelphia for the next three years, but Roseman, may however, find himself on the Ticket next November, if Eagles Nation has anything to say about it.
Trader Howie just made a huge, stunning splash today, less than three hours into the “free agent legal tampering” period, a 48 hour sanctioned communication period between teams and NFL free-agents-to-be prior to the official start of free agency on March 13.
Barkley reportedly reached an agreement with the Philadelphia Eagles on a three-year, $37.75 million contract that could be worth up to $46.75M and includes $26M fully guaranteed at signing.
Barkley now beats the franchise tag number and has a maximum average-per-year salary of $15.833M, which would be the second highest for a running back in NFL history just behind San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey. Here’s where Barkley will stack up among the highest paid NFL running backs.
1. Christian McCaffrey, SanFrancisco 49ers – $16,015,875
2. Saquon Barkey, Philadelphia Eagles – $15,833,00
3. Alvin Kamara, New Orleans Saints – $15,000,000
4. Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts – $14,000,000
5. Nick Chubb, Cleveland Browns – $12,200,000
The former Penn State star was the second overall pick by New York in 2018 and hit the NFL ground running, racking up 1,307 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns, earning him the NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year Award.
Barkley put up career high numbers two seasons ago by rushing for 1312 yards, scoring 10 TDs and catching 57 passes for 338 yards.
Unfortunately, Barkley has had an injury-plagued career and the other four seasons of his six year NFL career were cut short due to an array of health problems. He missed three games due to a high ankle sprain last year but still almost rushed for a thousand yards, falling just short with 962. All told, Saquon has been a very productive running back despite the injuries and despite playing behind one of the worst offensive lines in the league since his rookie season and rarely having the luxury of a high powered passing attack to boot.
Roseman is now banking on seeing that star quality rejuvenated, albeit at 27 years old, behind one of the top offensive lines in the league over the last six seasons.
The signing flies in the face of the traditional business model that the Eagles have used for the better part of the last two decades as pertains to the running back position. Philadelphia has been to three Super Bowls in the last 20 years and each trip to the big game stemmed from a running back platoon system and they’ve been consistently one of the league’s elite rushing teams with that philosophy.
The Birds went to Super Bowl 39 in 2005 on the backs of Brian Westbrook, Duce Staley andCornell Buckhalter. They won a Super Bowl with the three headed monster of Lagarrette Blount, Jay Ajai and Corey Clement in 2018 and two seasons ago made it to another title game with the triumvirate of Miles Sanders, Kenny Gainwell and Boston Scott. Their only true franchise running back since the days of Ricky Watters in the mid 90’s was Leshon McCoy. McCoy is the franchise’s all-time leading rusher but fell short of playing in a title game during his tenure in Philly.
Barkley had claimed that he wanted to be a Giant for life until he found out last year that the NFL puts loyalty just above a felony when it comes to your dispensability quotient.
Let’s face it he’s been the face of the Giants’ franchise since his rookie year and was the ultimate team-first player there despite enduring five losing seasons under three different head coaches in New York.
On the bright side the cream of the free agent running back crop will now be playing in his hometown state (his family moved from the Bronx to the Lehigh Valley when he was four and he became a star running back at Penn State) and he can now possibly take out his past frustrations on his former team twice a year. Barkley is 3-10 versu the Birds. The Giants did not make an offer to retain Barkley according to multiple sources.
Always the class act Barkley tweeted this a short time ago
MORE: Saquon’s Choice Came Down to Three Teams
It was at PRISM where Staszak produced live games and began his career as an on-air reporter.
After a couple of brief stints with CBS-3, WB-17 and WGAL-8 in Lancaster, PA, Staszak began a 12 year stretch at FOX 29 where he became the lead sportscaster in 2007. It was there that Staszak found himself in the middle of Philadelphia Phillies World Series Championship coverage that earned him an Emmy nomination for best sports reporter in 2008.It was one of five Emmy nominations that Staszak earned over the course of his career.
All told Staszak covered three World Series, two Stanley Cup Finals, an NBA Finals and one Super Bowl during his television run.
Staszak left the TV business for 97.5 The Fanatic in 2013, where he enjoyed eight years bloviating his beliefs on how a professional football team should be run.In 2018 when he fortunate enough to be the first sports talk host in the city, along with cohort Zach Gelb, to provide post-game coverage of the first Super Bowl Championship for the city’s beloved Philadelphia Eagles.
Staszak was also a writer for 97.5 The Fanatic along with 4 Philly Sports and now covers Penn State athletics for NittanyCentral.com.
