Barkley’s also ready for the next season.
For some clubs, winning a division title and making it to the postseason would be viewed as some form of success.
Barkley and the Eagles won the Super Bowl in the 2024 season, though, and after reaching the mountain top, 2025’s outcome wasn’t enough.
“There is going to be one winner and thirty-one losers,” Barkley said, “and the losers are all the same.”
The goal is the same for Barkley and the inspiration.
In his first year with the Eagles, Barkley ran to historic success. He became the ninth player in NFL history to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season, hitting 2,005 (eighth all time). Barkley sat out Week 18 just 100 yards away from Eric Dickerson’s single-season record of 2,105.
He did bring home AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year hardware, however. The Super Bowl was most certainly the crowning achievement.
The encore was an unfitting sequel. Barkley rushed for 1,140 yards on the 18th-ranked rushing offense, a season after he won a rushing title as part of the second-ranked running offense. And Philadelphia went 11-6 before a wild-card loss.
The positive of it all is that it has served as fuel for Barkley and his teammates through the offseason.
“So that’s a motivation for me – try to get back to that game,” Barkley said. “That’s why I train the way I train. I would love to have had a faster start last year, but you can’t get caught up in the stats. You can’t get too caught up in numbers. Some of my better years weren’t based off numbers. It was based off how I handled myself in certain situations.”