With Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season officially in the books, it's hard not to identify Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley as one of the league's big winners.
Making his debut in Midnight Green in quite possibly the weirdest circumstances imaginable, in Brazil on a Friday, Barkley absolutely dominated on the grounds and through the air, picking up 109 yards and two touchdowns on 24 carries on the ground while adding 23 more yards and another touchdown through the air as a receiver. He looked sharp, his option game with Jalen Hurts was elite, and when the Eagles needed someone to control the clock down the stretch, Barkley came through in a major way.
Is Barkley bringing the bell cow running back to the City of Brotherly Love once more? Or was this more of an anomaly, with Barkley's backup, Kenneth Gainwell, only running the ball one time in Brazil? Well, Nick Sirianni addressed that during his Monday media availability, and needless to say, fantasy managers aren't going to be too excited about his response.
Nick Sirianni isn't committed to Saquon Barkley as a bellcow rusher
Asked about the distribution of carries in Week 1, with Barkley running the ball 24 times, Hurts picking up 33 yards on 13 carries, and Gainwell bringing up the rear with one, Sirianni was asked if he plans to keep giving his top rusher 20-plus carries a game heading into the future, or if that was more of a game flow decision based on the hot hand.
While Sirianni won't commit too much to his plans one way or another, he did admit that the team will make a concerted effort to take the load off of Barkley in the future, even if that plan goes out the window depending on how the game shakes out.
“Yeah, you do everything you can do to win each football game, and so once the game is in the flow, you think about how you're going to win that game. And whether that's [RB] Saquon [Barkley] getting 20-whatever touches, whether that's us throwing the ball to [WR] AJ [Brown], [WR] DeVonta [Smith], [TE] Dallas [Goedert], whatever it may be, you try to manage them more within practice,” Sirianni explained to reporters.
“So, something like that, with Saquon having that many touches, we'll have a plan for that this week in practice where we can take some of the load off him there. Every time you go into the game — every game is so important in the NFL that it's hard to say — and when he's got a hot hand like that, too — to say, ‘Hey, you don't want to keep giving him the ball.' You're trying to win every single game that you play.
“That's our job as coaches to manage that throughout the week during practice. Games will take care of themselves as they go. There will naturally be a game where we throw it fifty times or [RB] Kenneth [Gainwell] or [RB] Will [Shipley] will have a couple carries. So that will take care of itself throughout the year. As of right now, we handle that through our practice.”
Welp, there you go, fantasy football managers; while Barkley may end up having 20, 25, 30 touch games in the future, he might also have games where he has 15 or is held out of key moments like two-minute drills in favor of someone like Gainwell, who filled that role in Week 1. Sure, he's still an elite option in daily fantasy, just not a guarantee to earn all of the key snaps when it counts, depending on how Sirianni decides to deploy his personnel.
