NFL running backs Barry Sanders, Saquon Barkley and Curtis Martin.
From one GOAT to another, it’s all love.
Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders reached out to Philadelphia Eagles running back and NFL MVP candidate Saquon Barkley this week, with Barkley sharing a picture on social media of a signed jersey sent to him from Sanders with an emotional message on it: “To Saquon. I love the fact that you’ve shown everyone how valuable you really are.”
All the heart emojis. All the emotional crying emojis. All class.
Sanders’ gesture to Barkley comes toward the end of a historic season — something Sanders knows a lot about. With 3 games left in the regular season, Barkley has already set the Eagles’ franchise single-season record with 1,688 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns while averaging 5.9 yards per carry.
The Eagles are also the NFL’s hottest team, with a 12-2 record and a 10-game winning streak headed into a Week 16 road game against the Washington Commanders.
“Barkley has enjoyed a career renaissance, one that may help shift the general discourse over how running backs are valued more widely across the league,” Bleacher Report’s Joseph Zucker wrote on December 18. “He’s leading the NFL in rushing yards (1,688), and maintaining his current pace would put him at 2,050 for the season. Were that to happen, the two-time Pro Bowler would enter elite company as just one of eight players to eclipse 2,000 rushing yards.”
Sanders One of NFL’s Greatest Players of All Time
Sanders, a Wichita, Kansas, native, won the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma State in 1988 when he rushed 2,628 yards and 37 touchdowns in 11 games — arguably the greatest single season for any player in college football history.
The Detroit Lions selected Sanders with the No. 3 overall pick in the 1989 NFL draft and Sanders reeled off the most dominant decade for a running back since Jim Brown on the Cleveland Browns in the 1950s and 1960s.
In 10 seasons, Sanders was NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, a 10-time NFL All-Pro, 10-time Pro Bowler, 2-time NFL Offensive Player of the Year, 4-time NFL rushing champion and was named NFL MVP in 1997, when he rushed for 2,053 yard.
Sanders shocked the football world when he retired following the 1998 season — and still in his prime — via a fax message to his hometown newspaper, The Wichita Eagle:
“Shortly after the end of last season, I felt that I probably would not return for the 1999–2000 season. I also felt that I should take as much time as possible to sort through my feelings and make sure that my feelings were back with conviction. Today, I officially declare my departure from the NFL.”
When Sanders retired, he was only 1,457 yards away from Walter Payton’s NFL career rushing record.
Barkley Single-Handedly Resurrected RB Position
When NFL running backs who are about to be free agents in 2025 see Barkley in the future, they probably need to buy him dinner — or at least say “thank you” for putting so much money in their pockets.
One of the biggest storylines in the 2024 offseason was how running backs had been devalued, with Barkley at the center of it all after the New York Giants refused to pay up and lost him to the Eagles on a 3-year, $37.75 million contract — a move that ended up costing Giants general manager Joe Schoen his job.
Tony Adame covers the NFL for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Washington Commanders and Denver Broncos. A veteran sports writer and editor since 2004, his work has been featured at Stadium Talk, Yardbarker, NW Florida Daily News and Pensacola News Journal. More about Tony Adame
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