Saquon Barkley Fantasy Overview

2025 Role & Results

Top-3 Cost; Mid-RB2 Returns

If you drafted Barkley last season, then you probably bristle at even seeing his name. And you didn’t need to draft him to notice a precipitous production drop vs. 2024.

Barkley finished 2025 ranked:

• 14th among RBs in total PPR points
• 16th in PPR points per game
• 15th in total half-PPR points and points per game
• 14th in total non-PPR points
• 15th in non-PPR points per game

That’s not an awful fantasy season … unless you went among the position’s top 3 in ADP.

Barkley reached the weekly PPR top 12 in just five of his 16 appearances, including just one week among the position’s top 6.

Contrast that with his 2024, which included nine top-12 weeks among 16 appearances, with eight of those among the top 6 and four weeks as the top-scoring RB overall.

The Workload Stayed Elite

The workload wasn’t a problem. Barkley actually drew a slightly larger share of Philly carries (61.0%, sixth among RBs) than he did in 2024 (57.9%, 13th). His target share climbed as well, from 9.6% in 2024 (21st among RBs) to 10.9% (12th).

The biggest problem was his offense. Philly dropped from seventh in scoring and eighth in total yards to 19th and 24th, respectively. That helped produce a decline of 104 in total offensive plays and 143 fewer team rushes.

Although the Eagles won the division both years, the 11-6 version of 2025 didn’t spend nearly as much time leading (more favorable rushing conditions). The offense also looked far more disjointed under first-time OC Kevin Patullo. Kellen Moore, who called plays as the 2024 OC, left to become head coach of the Saints.

O-line injuries hurt as well. RT Lane Johnson missed seven games and left four others early. LG C Cam Jurgens sat out two games and left three others early. Landon Dickerson lost just one game to injury but left four others early.

The team finished 16th in ESPN’s run-block win rate after ranking ninth in 2024. The No. 30 ranking in adjusted line yards marked an even steeper drop from 2024’s No. 20 finish.

3.8 Yards Before Contact Became 2.5

That all contributed to Barkley’s efficiency tumble, though you can still find reason for optimism hidden in those numbers:

The optimism lies in Barkley's missed tackles forced per attempt, which essentially matched his 2024 mark and ranked as the second-best rate of his career. That suggests he remained the same caliber of runner independent of his blocking.

As for that blocking, Barkley’s 2.5 yards before contact per attempt last season marked a steep drop from the previous season’s 3.8. But the lower number still matched the second-best rate of his career and also put him right around last year’s league average.

That means even an injury-depleted version of Philly’s O-line still offers Barkley more help than he tended to get from his Giants blockers.

The Eagles don’t help his receiving outlook, though. Barkley’s 2.3 catches per game last season topped his 2.1 from the previous year. But his two Philly campaigns have produced his two lowest marks in receptions per game and receiving yards per game.

Here’s how those numbers look overall for his two stints:

• Giants: 3.9 receptions, 28.4 yards
• Eagles: 2.2 receptions, 17.2 yards

Injury History & Durability

Philly has been good for Barkley’s health. Although he has picked up occasional dings, Barkley has yet to be listed as questionable entering a game with the Eagles. The lone time he arrived as doubtful came in Week 18 of 2024, a game in which Philly rested starters after clinching playoff positioning (and the team listed Barkley for “rest”).

2026 Opportunity & Projection

Barkley Owns This Backfield

Barkley’s role remains clear and beyond competition. Philly’s most significant backfield addition is Dameon Pierce, who washed out in Houston and arrived on a small one-year deal. He has a better chance of missing the regular-season roster than mattering.

Tank Bigsby will continue to back up Barkley after arriving via early September trade last season. He logged just 62 carries from his Week 2 arrival through the playoff loss, with 16 of those coming in the Week 18 game Barkley sat out (starters’ rest) and 17 in a 31-0 drubbing of the Raiders that Barkley left in the third quarter.

Expect another dominant workload for the 29-year-old starter.

Philly’s Best Upgrade Is Simple Health

Philly’s biggest personnel changes came at WR, where they traded A.J. Brown to New England after drafting Makai Lemon in Round 1. We’ll see whether that portends any further rushing lean, but that’s tough to project for a team already among the league’s most run-heavy.

What Barkley needs most is the offensive line to stay healthy. As of now, all the starters are fully healthy. And RG Tyler Steen heads into his second full season in the lineup. That should mean further growth to his game, but Pro Football Focus already graded him solidly in both run and pass blocking.

Sean Mannion’s First Test Starts Here

The biggest offensive change might be the coordinator change. Philly dumped Patullo after a disastrous offensive season. That can’t possibly be a bad move after the Eagles looked disjointed in their offensive operation for much of 2025.

That said, Patullo had spent the previous seven seasons working under Nick Sirianni. So it’s tough to pin all the blame on him (and the O-line injuries).

New OC Sean Mannion will call plays for the first time after spending just two years on Matt LaFleur's staff in Green Bay, including only one as a QBs coach. That's a thin coaching résumé for the former six-year NFL backup QB.

Early assessments of Mannion’s scheme say we should expect the QB to line up under center more often, the run blocking to use more stretch-zone approaches, and for Philly to run more play action. RT Lane Johnson has said -- more than once -- that he’s excited:

[Indent]“It’s just different points of emphasis. Run game, you have the ability to stretch the front side but also the running back has the ability to read the backside blocks more than maybe what we did in previous years. I just think, for us, it really does a good job of allowing us to run. We have a lot of athletic guys up front. So being able to stretch the field, make the D-tackles run, make the linebackers run, cover all this ground. And then I think setting it with play action is gonna make it a whole lot tougher to distinguish what we’re doing, a whole lot harder to catch on tells with stuff that we’re doing.”

Top-6 Barkley Needs the Offense Back

There are three keys to Barkley’s season going well:

1. His health
2. His O-line’s health
3. The offense’s health

We have no reason to doubt the veteran RB’s physical ability at this point, and the O-line heads toward the season with no injury concerns.

The offense? We can’t really know how that will look until the season begins. But we can expect a hefty workload for the star RB. If the new scheme meshes well with a healthy, athletic O-line, then Barkley carries upside into the position’s top 6.

He’ll still likely need TD luck and higher-level rushing efficiency than most other RBs going in the first two rounds because of lower receiving usage compared with those guys.

Hurts and the Blocking Must Adjust Fast

Staying healthy at RB requires plenty of luck, so it’s always possible that works against Barkley in 2026 after he escaped significant issues the past two seasons. But that factor’s not enough to ding his outlook at draft time.

The risk factors to watch for through camp and preseason will be injuries to any of the O-line starters -- especially either OT or C Cam Jurgens -- and any signal that there are hiccups in running the new scheme. That could show up in the blocking or in Jalen Hurts.