Miles Sanders Wants to be An Eagle Forever
PHILADELPHIA – The Penn State backfield from yesteryear will be reunited in the Pro Bowl – Miles Sanders and Saquon Barkley will ride again.
Well, maybe.
If the Eagles are in the Super Bowl, or even the Giants for that matter, they won’t get to participate in the Pro Bowl festivities scheduled for the first week of February and culminating in a flag football game between the AFC and NFC.
Still, the former Penn State backfield from the middle of the last decade are Pro Bowlers. Together.
“It’s pretty cool,” said Sanders on Thursday, a day after learning he made his first Pro Bowl team. “He called me as soon as he found out. It’s just a blessing, a real blessing. It’s a dream come true, of course. Definitely more to come. This is just a start and I’m happy with how everything’s played out, and I kept my focus. This is all hard work.
“Somebody will be able to play, hopefully, not our team because our team is supposed to be playing the week after that (in the Super Bowl).”
All three NFC running backs are from the NFC East, with Dallas’ Tony Pollard also being selected.
Sanders and Pollard trained together leading up to the NFL Scouting Combine prior to the 2019 draft when Sanders was a second-round pick and Pollard a fourth-round selection.
Everyone knows Sanders is in the final year of his contract and the numbers he has put up so far – 1,110 yards and 11 touchdowns – will certainly look good at the bargaining table. The Pro Bowl is an added bonus.
Could the next contract be with the Eagles?
“We’ll see,” said Sanders. "That’s not up to me. He (GM Howie Roseman) knows I would like to be an Eagle forever. We’ll see.”
Sanders said during last summer’s training camp that he wanted to earn some respect for his game. He seemingly has done.
“I genuinely had something to prove, and I feel like I’ve put a lot of work in since I’ve been here as an Eagle,” he said. “I have records here as an Eagle. Just trying to get my respect is all I really wanted. I don’t know that I got it, but I know I’ve been doing a lot of things to help that case.”
His touchdowns or lack thereof really gnawed at him from a season ago.
His 11 this year are 11 more than he had last year.
“It was a big ol’ Dorito chip on my shoulder, the biggest Dorito chip ya’ll can see, but yeah, I’d be lying if I said that didn’t bother me,” he said. “It definitely bothered me, just the way the whole year played out, I didn’t like that.”
Sanders admitted that he pressed a bit as the season wore on and he could never break the goal line.
“There were some uncharacteristic things I was doing, probably just trying to do too much on a play where I could’ve got something if I would’ve read it right and burst up in there,” he said. “There was a lot of stuff. It was all messed up last year, discombobulated. Had to get back right.”
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
