Lane Johnson isn’t ready to write off Saquon Barkley after a quieter 2025 season, and he thinks the best version of the Eagles running back could be right around the corner.
Barkley followed up his outrageous 2024 with a more human year in 2025, though “human” still meant 1,140 rushing yards - the fourth-best total of his career. The explosive chunk plays that defined his first season in Midnight Green showed up far less often, and he had only three 100-yard games after piling up 11 of them in 2024.
Still, Johnson said at Wednesday’s Eagles practice that the ingredients are there for Barkley to get back to the kind of production that made him one of the league’s most dangerous backs.
“The more productive we are in the run game and stuff feeds off that, we'll see the Saquon from two years ago,” Johnson said via The Athletic's Zach Berman. “We'll see the big plays, we'll see him flex wide at wide receiver, we'll see him in the screen game.”
Barkley is heading into his ninth NFL season, but the wear and tear on his body isn’t quite what you’d expect for a back with that kind of mileage. He has appeared in 113 games overall, with a large chunk of 2020 lost to injury and just seven playoff games on his résumé because of New York’s struggles to reach the postseason for most of his time there.
So while Barkley has already logged plenty of football, Johnson clearly believes there’s still more left in the tank. And if the Eagles’ run game gets rolling again, the door is open for another season that looks a lot more like 2024 than 2025.
In Other News...
Cooper DeJean Practice Clip Has Eagles Fans Talking For The Wrong Reason
Joint practices usually provide the cleanest snapshot of where a roster stands before the games start counting, and one of the most watched matchups on the field Thursday in New England came with Cooper DeJean lined up across from DeMario Douglas. The Eagles defensive back entered the offseason with plenty of momentum after earning first-team All-Pro honors as a slot defender last season, so every rep against a quick, elusive receiver was going to draw attention from fans looking for clues about how Philadelphias secondary is coming together.
Douglas made the most of the spotlight, winning all three of their 1-on-1 reps by snapping off sharp cuts and exploding into separation, and the clip moved quickly through social media as Eagles followers reacted to what they saw. It is still only a practice setting, of course, but when a player with DeJeans reputation looks out of sync in a widely shared drill, it is the kind of thing that tends to linger until the pads come on and the matchup gets another chance to play out. [Read more 🡒]
Eagles Bubble Players Suddenly Feel Like Real Trade Candidates
With roster cutdown day looming on Aug. 30, the Eagles are at the point in camp where the back end of the roster starts to matter as much as the headline names. The usual churn of preseason competition has turned into a real evaluation of who can help Philadelphia now, who has a future here, and who might bring back something useful if the front office decides to move a player instead of simply waive him.
That is why a few bubble cases suddenly carry more trade intrigue than they did a week ago. Andy Dalton, Smael Mondon Jr., Hollywood Brown, Jakorian Bennett and Fred Johnson all sit in different spots on the depth chart, but each comes with a mix of team need, contract situation and performance questions that could make them attractive to another club before the deadline. Nothing is settled yet, but this is the part of camp when a player can go from fighting for a roster spot to being discussed as a legitimate trade chip. [Read more 🡒]
Former Penn State Standout Sees Strong Eagles Camp Cut Short
Tariq Castro-Fields had been one of the more intriguing names in Eagles camp, trying to turn a strong summer into a legitimate push for a 53-man roster spot while working back from a heel injury. The former Penn State standout brought enough familiarity and upside to make him worth watching in a secondary that always seems to have room for another corner to force the issue.
Instead, Philadelphia moved Castro-Fields to injured reserve, which ends his training camp and likely his season before the real evaluation could even finish. The Eagles also waived/injured wide receiver Johnny Wilson while adding center Zeke Correll and wide receiver Brandon Hayes, a reminder of how quickly roster opportunities can shift at this stage of camp, especially for players trying to survive on the margins. [Read more 🡒]