Stats show Saquon Barkley was destined to shine anywhere but with Giants

Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley put up a historic "Sunday Night Football" performance.

The 27-year-old racked up 255 rushing yards and two touchdowns, topping his career single-game high-water mark of 189 yards, previously set as a New York Giant in 2019.

Those yards, added to his previous 10 games, now total 1,392 for the year. That's 80 yards more than his career single-season high set in 2022 (1,312), and there are still six games remaining on Philadelphia's schedule.

New York general manager Joe Schoen let Barkley walk in free agency this past offseason, and his signing with in-division-rival Philadelphia sparked a myriad of online and on-air discussions.

Most of it revolved around New York making the wrong decision to let its best player go and instead invest money in quarterback Daniel Jones, who just cleared waivers on Monday.

Barkley's Offensive Player of the Year-like performance this season in Philadelphia has only further inflamed that narrative, but the stats tell a different story, one that never would've had a good ending for New York.

In 2022, when Barkley set his previous career high, New York had the fourth-most rushing yards in the league and averaged 4.8 yards-per-carry (fifth best). The Eagles trailed just behind in fifth and 12th respectively.

In 2023, New York fell to 16th in rushing yards and 19th in yards-per-carry. Philadelphia stayed at a healthy eighth and ninth, respectively.

What caused the dramatic drop for the Giants? In part, Barkley missed three games with an ankle injury, but New York's offensive line was horrendous the whole year.

The team had the 19th-best rush block win percentage (71%) compared to Philadelphia at eighth (73%). All five of Philadelphia's offensive lineman ranked in the top three at their positions for run block win rates.

New York's offensive line was supposedly boosted with the signing of Jon Runyan and Jermaine Eluemunor this year but currently ranks 27th and has given up the eighth-most sacks.

Barkley was never going to reach his potential ceiling behind New York's front five. Now that he's behind arguably the league's best, he's thriving, and observers are blinded by hypotheticals that were statistically impossible if he stayed a Giant for life.

Had he re-signed, the narrative would've instead shifted to calls for Barkley to be traded to a contender as New York (2-9) would've been likely wasting his potential.

The Giants were in a no-win situation. A situation in which its original problems were rooted well before the Schoen regime and is only exacerbated now by Barkley's recent success behind a competent offensive line.