NEW ORLEANS – Saquon Barkley’s landmark season now has an added distinction.
The Philadelphia Eagles’ All-Pro running back and NFL’s newly crowned Offensive Player of the Year broke Hall of Famer Terrell Davis’ record for most rushing yards in a season – postseason included – Sunday during Super Bowl 59 against the Kansas City Chiefs. Barkley’s 2-run in the second quarter moved him ahead of Davis, who ran for 2,476 yards in 19 games (three in the playoffs) for the 1998 Denver Broncos, who won Super Bowl 33. The Super Bowl is Barkley’s 20th appearance of the 2024 campaign.
Prior to this season, Davis had the top two full-season totals, producing 2,331 yards on the ground in 1997 (also in 19 games), when Denver won Super Bowl 32. He was the MVP of that game after rushing for a Super Sunday record three touchdowns among his 157 yards.
Barkley, who has a record seven touchdown runs of at least 60 yards this season (playoffs included), rushed for 2,005 yards in 16 regular-season games, the ninth time in NFL history the 2,000 yard plateau was reached by a running back. He sat out Philadelphia’s Week 18 game – the Eagles had nothing to gain in terms of playoff positioning in the regular-season finale – rather than trying to break Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson’s single-season record of 2,105 yards, achieved over 16 games in 1984.
Davis rushed for 2,008 yards in 1998.
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Barkley is also within striking distance of another mark. He need to gain 169 yards on the ground in the Super Bowl to break John Riggins’ record for the most (610) in a single postseason. Riggins racked up his total over four games during the 1982 playoffs, which followed a season curtailed to nine games by a players strike.
Overtaking Riggins would mean another record for Barkley, who’s currently in a four-way tie with Davis (who did it twice) and Hall of Famer Barry Sanders with 14 games, postseason included, with at least 100 rushing yards in a single season.
