The Philadelphia Eagles are facing the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 9 of the NFL season. The game was originally scheduled to be played on Sunday Night Football, but it was later flexed out of primetime. Unlucky for the fans, who missed a fantastic play by Saquon Barkley.
The Eagles running back signed a three-year, $36 million deal this offseason, going against Howie Roseman's trend of not paying big deals for running backs. However, Barkley has been excellent since joining Philadelphia, with 766 rushing yards, 106 receiving yards and 6 total touchdowns in eight games.
One of his most impressive plays, however, happened in a simple third-down conversion. Barkley caught the pass and made an incredible 180-degree juke over a Jaguars defender, evading him and getting a new set of downs for the team. NFL fans were extremely impressed with the running back's move:
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"I’ve never seen a player do that before, bro," said a shocked fan.
"I haven't seen a player even consider the possibility of jumping over a defender backwards. Wild," was another reaction.
"One of the greatest plays ever and it was only 7 yards," a third fan said.
"As a blocker though, how do you plan for that?" another fan asked.
Saquon's individual performance was excellent for Philadelphia. He finished the first half of the game with 101 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns as the team mounted a 16-0 lead. In Doug Pederson's return, the Jaguars could not stand the Eagles.
Eagles signed Saquon Barkley from divisional rival New York Giants in free agency
The Giants used the second overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft on the running back, but they did not sign him to a second contract after his rookie deal ended. During Hard Knocks, general manager Joe Schoen was seen upset with the possibility that he could've ended up in Philadelphia.
And that's exactly what happened. He later tried to justify his decision.
"It was difficult. It always is. And where our roster is, the different needs that we had and how we're going to allocate our funds that we had, we had to make a difficult decision.
"And we wish Saquon nothing but the best. Episode one, when we're all in the office, and Chris Rossetti is saying 'Should we trade? Do we not?' We thought we were only gonna have $15 million, and we didn't even know what the cap was at the time."
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