Both Barkley and Jacobs put up great statistical seasons in 2024.
It’s been the year of the running back in the NFL, and Sunday’s Packers/Eagles matchup will feature two of this year’s best at the position. The Eagles’ Saquon Barkley joined one of the NFL’s most exclusive clubs when he cracked the 2,000-yard barrier this year, while Josh Jacobs rewarded the Packers’ faith in him by turning a 1,300-yard effort that would have probably garnered a lot more attention across the league if not for Barkley and Derrick Henry.
But how great were their seasons in the context of the histories of their respective teams, as well as the league as a whole? I’m glad you asked, because I have the answer.
Let’s start with Jacobs, whose season doesn’t rate among the best in league history but has some very prestigious company in Packers history. If you’re a Packers fan under the age of about 40, you’ve only seen two players put up more rushing yards in a season than Jacobs’ 1,329 this year. Dorsey Levens had a career best 1,435 in 1997, while Ahman Green put up 1,387 in 2001, then broke the franchise rushing yardage record with 1,883 in 2003.
Expanding out to all of Packers history, we only have to add one more name to the list of players to break the 1,300-yard barrier: Jim Taylor. Vince Lombardi’s great fullback twice surpassed 1,300 yards, doing it in both 1961 and 1962. His 1962 campaign might be the best rushing season in Packers history, too; he totaled 1,474 yards and 19 touchdowns on just 243 attempts, limited by the NFL’s 14-game schedule at the time.
Jacobs joins Taylor and Green in a couple of other categories this year, too, both of them having to do with scoring a boatload of touchdowns. With rushing 15 touchdowns this season, Jacobs became just the fourth player in team history to score at least that many times on the ground, along with Green, Taylor (twice), and Aaron Jones, who scored 16 rushing touchdowns in 2019.
Jacobs also scored a receiving touchdown this year, giving him a total of 16 touchdowns on the year. That’s only been done eight times in Packers history; twice by Taylor, once by Green, Jones, and Jacobs, and once each by Don Hutson, Sterling Sharpe, and Davante Adams. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?
Barkley, meanwhile, has very exclusively company in the aforementioned 2,000-yard club. Not only did Barkely become the ninth player in NFL history to break 2,000 yards, he did it only the third fewest carries. Only O.J. Simpson (332 carries in 1973) and Barry Sanders (335 in 1997) made it to 2,000 yards in fewer attempts than Barkley, who only needed 345 to make the climb to that particular statistical summit.
Barkley is also one of just four players in NFL history to average at least 5.5 yards per carry on more than 340 rushing attempts in a season, averaging 5.8 this year. Eric Dickerson did it during his league-best 2,105-yard season, averaging 5.6 per carry on the 379 it took him to set the NFL’s single-season rushing record, and so did the lightning-fast Chris Johnson, who put up an identical 5.6 yards per carry average during his 2,006-yard season in 2009. Then there’s Barkley at 5.8, who looks up only at Adrian Peterson. In 2012, coming off a torn ACL the previous season, Peterson averaged 6.0 yards per carry on 348 attempts, piling up a league-leading 2,097 yards in what would become an MVP campaign.
Whatever happens in this Sunday’s game, it won’t be boring for lack of running back firepower.