Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley had one of the most dominant seasons in NFL history in 2024, and is getting the cover treatment ahead of the 2025 campaign kicking off.
On June 2, EA Sports announced that Barkley will be featured on the cover of Madden 26, specifically his iconic reverse hurdle against the Jacksonville Jaguars which served as one of his defining moments en route to winning the Offensive Player of The Year Award.
Barkley, 28, rushed for a career-high 2,005 yards with 13 touchdowns in his first season behind the Eagles’ dominant offensive line after signing as a free agent last March.
The former No. 2 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, out of Penn State, Barkley came just 100 yards shy of breaking Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record, but was a healthy scratch in the Eagles’ season finale with Philadelphia already locked in as the No. 2 seed in the NFC.
Barkley becomes the first Eagles player since Donovan McNabb to be the cover athlete of EA Sports’ Madden franchise, and looks to break the perceived “Madden Cover Jinx” which has seen several of the cover players besieged by injuries the season that they appear on the game.
This is a developing story, more coming …