How Saquon Barkley’s season was better than Eric Dickerson’s in 1984, despite falling just shy of the rushing record

Now that we can finally move on from playing Saquon Barkley in a meaningless game against the New York Giants, I feel the need to make a bigger point about this large conversation centered around the NFL rushing record.

With Saquon now being a member of the 2,000 yard-club, even without holding the record, in fact you could argue that his 2024 season rivals Eric Dickerson’s historic 1984 campaign. Saquon actually has a better yards-per-carry number and is only 100 yards behind Dickerson, despite having 34 fewer rush attempts. So, if you project Barkley’s numbers over the same 379 carries Dickerson had, Barkley would have totaled an impressive 2,202 yards through 16 games, surpassing Dickerson’s 2,105 yards.

If we take it even further back, O.J. Simpson reached 2,003 yards in just 14 games during the 1973 season, averaging 23.7 carries and six yards per attempt. This comparison bolsters the case that both O.J. in 1973 and Saquon in 2024 demonstrated greater efficiency than Dickerson did in 1984.

Saquon Barkley on resting in Week 17

During his conversation with Nick Sirianni, Saquon Barkley expressed interest in going for the record but was also mindful of not putting the team at risk. pic.twitter.com/JIy75rBsWT

— Tim McManus (@Tim_McManus) January 1, 2025

So, now that you have these facts from me, you know see why the decision to rest Saquon Barkley in week 17 is far less controversial. While everyone is talking about Dickerson’s total, we refuse to actually dissect the rushing numbers as a whole, which is entirely a failure by the national sports media for acknowledging any of this.

Have no fear though, Steven Conrad Jr. is here to keep it real. At the end of the day, there is a prize much larger and more important which is the Super Bowl. And I think as a fanbase we need to all take a page out of Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts’ playbook, “keep the main thing, the main thing.”

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