Can Saquon Barkley Break Loose in Tennessee?

By all accounts, Philadelphia’s 29-year-old running back Saquon Barkley still has the explosiveness and burst that has made him an elite ball carrier over the years.

Barkley rushed for 83 yards on 15 carries last week against Washington in Sunday’s season opener. That amounts to a solid average of 5.5 yards per attempt. It was good production when you consider Philadelphia only ran 53 plays the entire game.

However, 42 of those yards came on one play. For most of the game, Washington rallied to the ball and Barkley was met by multiple defenders for most of the evening. What needs to change in order to break Barkley loose more often in Week 2 at Tennessee against the Titans?

The Eagles made a huge first step toward that goal by placing the struggling left guard Landon Dickerson on injured reserve. In his place, second-year man Drew Kendall will likely be called upon to become Philadelphia’s new starter. It remains to be seen how effective Kendall will be in this new role. However, it won’t be hard to do better than Dickerson, who Pro Football Focus ranked near the bottom of the league in guard play after a dreadful outing in the season opener.

The offensive line as a unit has had another week of practice in offensive coordinator Sean Mannion’s new zone-blocking scheme. Rather than straight ahead mauling, the zone-blocking scheme relies more on footwork and athleticism from the offensive line. Most famously, the Denver Broncos of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s produced a host of 1,000-yard rushers using zone-blocking concepts. It will be interesting to see the week-to-week development of the Eagles offensive line in this new scheme.

Last week, Breece Hall of the New York Jets rushed 22 times for 102 yards and one touchdown against Tennessee. Barkley is a far superior runner than Breece is on his best day. If he gets the necessary amount of carries against an average defense at best, and the Eagles offensive line can improve on its timing and rhythm from a week ago, Barkley may be in for a big day on the ground.