Eagles' Barkley among rare company with Super Bowl appearance

Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley speaks during Super Bowl LIX Opening Night at Caesars Superdome. James Lang-Imagn Images

Eagles' Saquon Barkley among rare company with Super Bowl appearance

By Tony Thomas | Last updated Feb 4, 2025 9:50 PM ET

The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles will face off in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Feb. 9. In the Super Bowl era, only two 2,000-yard rushers have earned the right to play in pro football’s biggest game.

In this year’s game, the Eagles’ Saquon Barkley, the 2024 Bert Bell Award winner as the top player in the National Football League, rushed for 2,005 yards and 13 TDs.

In 1998, the league’s best player, with the salute to the Mile High fans and the initials “TD”, Terrell Davis, was scoring touchdowns at will on his way to another Super Bowl victory.

Davis rushed for 2,008 yards and 21 touchdowns during the 1998 season. That production carried over into the playoffs as he rushed for 468 yards and three TDs, an average of six yards per carry.

Against the Falcons in Super Bowl XXXIII, the Hall of Famer rushed for 102 yards but was kept out of the end zone by a Falcons defense that ranked second in the league in rushing yards allowed and fourth for fewest points allowed.

But it didn’t matter as the Broncos beat the Falcons, 34-19, for their second consecutive Super Bowl title.

OTD in 1999,
SUPER BOWL XXXIII

The #Broncos go back-to-back as MVP QB John Elway (336 yards, 1 TD; 1 rushing TD) closes out his HOF career and the Falcons, 34-19.

• #Denver D: 4 takeaways
• Terrell Davis: 152 total yds
• Rod Smith: 5-152-1 receiving
• Darrien Gordon: 2 INT pic.twitter.com/UMDWrxjvLY
— Kevin Gallagher (@KevG163) February 1, 2023

In 2021, Davis spoke with reporters and Terez Paylor of Yahoo Sports’ questioned Davis about the mindset needed to repeat as the world champions of pro football, as told to Pete Grathoff of the Kansas City Star. Davis had some advice for the Chiefs back then as they prepared to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV:

“I think the mind-set was not that we wanted to go back-to-back, we wanted to win a Super Bowl,” Davis said of facing the Falcons in Super Bowl XXXIII. “And it was like, we weren’t thinking about last year’s game.”

Davis suggested that the Chiefs just focus on beating Tampa Bay and not on the pressure of trying to repeat.

Kansas City lost 31-9.

On Sunday, the Chiefs will be playing for a three-peat, appearing in their fifth Super Bowl in six years, with three Super Bowl titles since 2020. The Eagles are playing in their second Super Bowl in three seasons.

Tony Thomas

Tony comes to YardBarker with 5 years of experience writing for such media outlets as The Gridiron News, College Football Dawgs, Mike Farrell Sports, and Saturday Blitz. A U.S. Air Force veteran, Tony is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA).

More must-reads: