Most teams are lucky to have one player on their roster worthy of consideration for the MVP award. But on Sunday night, the Philadelphia Eagles proved that they have multiple players worthy of at least being in the running for the award.
Heading into the game, the obvious candidate for the Eagles would naturally be star quarterback Jalen Hurts. With a combined 24 touchdowns on the year, Hurts has been one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in all of football.
While the MVP award isn’t exclusively a quarterback award, quarterbacks have long been regarded as the clear frontrunners to win the award for years now. And with the Eagles coming into Week 13 with an 8-2 record, Hurts very much finds himself in the mix.
However, Hurts actually had a relatively quiet game on Sunday Night Football against the Los Angeles Rams. Instead, Eagles star running back Saquon Barkley stole the show with one of the best games we have seen from a skill position player in quite some time.
On 30 total touches, Barkley recorded 302 total yards from scrimmage, which is the most any player has had since current Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs went for 303 scrimmage yards in 2022.
Barkley now finds himself as the leading rusher in the NFL by a wide margin. And as a result, he is now squarely in the MVP conversation himself, currently sitting behind just Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Jared Goff for the award in betting markets. Jalen Hurts sits in fifth just behind Barkley with the fifth-best odds.
The Eagles have two of the top five players in MVP odds on @BetParx
Saquon Barkley is up to 4th
Jalen Hurts sitting at 5thChance to go even higher with a win over Lamar Jackson and the Ravens next week #Eagles pic.twitter.com/kZzBCcsKTJ
— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) November 25, 2024
Naturally, there were plenty who were calling for Barkley to get some recognition as an MVP candidate after the game.
“It might be time to hand the league MVP to a RB for a change. His name: Saquon Barkley. This brother is ridiculous,” wrote Stephen A. Smith on X.
“Saquon for MVP,” wrote former Eagles running back LeSean McCoy.
“Saquon is in the MVP conversation y’all,” wrote former NFL star Ryan Clark. “We gotta get off of this QB award BS. This man is the best player in football right now!”
If Barkley plays even half as good as he did on Sunday night for the remainder of the season, he may very well find himself as the first running back to win MVP since Adrian Peterson in 2012.
