Heading into their divisional showdown against the Los Angeles Rams, the Philadelphia Eagles are probably feeling pretty good about their rushing attack. After all, when these two teams met in Week 12, the Eagles rushed for a career-high 314 yards, with most of that coming from Saquon Barkley, who rushed for a career-high 255 yards in Philadelphia’s 37-20 victory.
Although Barkley had success with the Rams defense in the first meeting, there is no guarantee that will happen in the rematch. In fact, if NFL History is an indication, chances are Barkley won’t rush for even half of what he did in the first meeting.
Barkley is the eighth player in NFL history to rush for at least 200 yards against a team in the regular season and then face that same team in the playoffs. Of the previous seven players, ALL SEVEN were held to less than 100 yards in the playoff game. That’s right, none of the players who topped 200 yards against an opponent in the regular season were even able to reach 100 yards in the playoff rematch.
Here’s a look at how this has played out over NFL history:
That’s 43 yards per game in the playoffs for a group of running backs who all hit the 200-yard mark against the same opponent.
Based on these numbers, it’s pretty clear that defenses take it personally when they get a feed in the regular season and they do everything they can to make sure that doesn’t happen in the playoffs. These seven running backs went a combined 3-4 in the playoffs after going 5-2 in regular season matchups.
The loss to the Eagles ended up being a turning point for the Rams defense. Since that loss, they have given up just 14.8 points per game in the six games their starters have played (they rested most of their starters in Week 18). They also gave up just 100.5 rushing yards per game during that span after giving up 314 to the Eagles.
Rams coach Sean McVay is well aware that stopping Barkley will be key in the game. Barkely is a dangerous runner because he can run through you, around you, or even get in your way by jumping backwards like he acted in a play earlier in the year.
“That’s what makes Saquon so special,” McVay said this week. “He’s patient and he hits you for some runs, but if he gets to the second and third levels, he’s really a slash runner and he has the That’s why he’s such a dynamic player. I think our feeling emergency will be appropriate for the task at hand this week. We love it and we look forward to it, but we have a lot of respect for this group.
Besides slowing down the Eagles rushing attack, McVay would probably also like to get his ground game going and that’s mainly because the Eagles went 4-3 this season (including the playoffs) giving up 110 yards or more on the ground, but 11-0. when they owned a team under that number.
