Saquon Barkley Questions His Mindset, Espresses Confidence In Organization

There’s plenty of uncertainty on the Eagles’ offense, starting with who the new offensive coordinator will be and stemming to personnel, such as will A.J. Brown be traded or placated? Will Lane Johnson retire or return? Who will be the tight ends?

Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley are the known commodities. Hurts will return, and the Eagles’ philosophy of not turning the ball over isn’t going anywhere, either. Head coach Nick Sirianni is so proud of his team's 42-3 record when it wins the turnover battle that he began spouting in a few different press conferences at the end of the season.

Barkley will return after some deep offseason reflection. The running back, who rushed for 865 yards less this year than he did in leading the Eagles’ Super Bowl charge in 2024, made a somewhat startling admission before heading into the offseason.

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“Being transparent, I don’t think I did a really good job with my mindset,” he said. “I kinda came in and was like, we did it at such a high-level last year, that like, ‘It has to look different.’

“I think I was very open and honest with you guys this year with more of like, you know, ‘It’s not gonna look like how it did last year, it’s gotta look different.’ Why would I ever have that mindset? That’s not good."

Saquon Barkley Addresses Mindset

His approach should have been, he said, “Like, why can’t I do it again? I never said that or I wasn’t consistent with that thought. So, definitely go back in this offseason with the mindset of how can I take it to another level?”

The offense posted 29 rushing touchdowns in 2024 and the second-most rushing yards with 3,048, behind the Ravens’ 3,189. This year, they collected just 1,988.

“I don’t think the reason why we weren’t successful this year – always give credit to the defense and coaches, because that’s the truth – but I don’t think the reason we were as successful running the ball had to do with there being more stacked or loaded boxes,” said Barkley. “I just feel that we as a collective didn’t do a very good job of figuring it out. And that’s gonna eat at me for a long time.”

There was plenty of talk about not treating this season like they were going to defend their Super Bowl title.

Left tackle Jordan Mailata said, “We’re not defending (bleep). I don't like hearing, 'Oh, we're the defending champions.' We're not defending nothing. We just won the title, and now we got to go win it again. Prove it all over again, and that's the mentality this team is gonna have.”

There was talk about how the offense would have to look different, that the running game would have to change because teams were going to adjust. A.J. Brown said the offense will need to evolve. It never did, and that is one reason Brown wasn’t happy.

“I truly do have the utmost confidence in the organization,” said Barkley. “I think in the last 10 years, I don’t think there’s been a better organization. We have the right guys who will do the best they can this offseason to watch film. As a whole, not just for the run game, but everything we can improve on, and see where we succeeded and what we lacked, and come up with a game plan.”

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