Saquon Barkley's autograph is in demand. Except there was one football in his hometown that he was never permitted to sign. When Barkley returned to Whitehall High in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley while playing for the New York Giants, he visited the office of athletic director Bob Hartman. This community adores Barkley. His No. 21 is retired at Zephyr Stadium. There's a big rock catty-corner to his childhood home with a plaque honoring his college achievements at Penn State. Hartman even entrusted Barkley to babysit his kids.

But when Barkley offered to sign a football in Hartman's office, his autograph was declined. The football was signed by Whitehall alums Matt Millen, Dan Koppen, and Les Steckel. Barkley's signature would presumably make it more valuable.

"You don't want me to sign the ball?" Barkley asked.

"It's only for Super Bowl (participants)," Hartman told him.

Barkley recounted this story to The Athletic recently as a reminder of how much has changed in the past year. He signed with the Eagles in March 2024 with a well-earned reputation as a talented running back, yet his value was unclear. He won one postseason game in his first six years. The Giants famously thought he was not worth the contract he desired.

One season later, Barkley's fame -- and accomplishments -- have reached a new level. He authored perhaps the finest season for a running back in NFL history. Barkley became the ninth player ever to rush for 2,000 yards, and his 2,504 combined rushing yards in the regular season and postseason set an NFL record. He earned Offensive Player of the Year. And most notably, he won the Super Bowl.

It helped shape Barkley's perspective. He wants to be known as one of the greatest running backs to ever play in the league. What does that mean if you don't win?

"You want to have those statistics, you want to have those numbers, that's the human in you," Barkley said. "But at the end of the day, I had two seasons where I had 2,000 (scrimmage) yards and 15 touchdowns. One was my rookie year, and one was here, and it looked really different. And I'd take last year over my rookie year every single time. It's all about winning. The numbers don't really matter when you really think about it."

One day after offering this sentiment, Barkley acknowledged that the two are not mutually exclusive. The 2024 Eagles were an example. On the field in New Orleans, minutes before Barkley first grasped the Lombardi Trophy, Jalen Hurts shared something with Barkley: "...You don't understand the difference you made," Hurts told him. "...You're like that last piece."

"You changed this team," Sirianni added.

The Eagles needed Barkley's greatness to reach a different level. Before Barkley's first season in Philadelphia, Eagles running back Will Shipley asked Barkley what keeps him going. His answer was achieving greatness. Before this season, he had a similar conversation with Hurts.

He discussed winning. It seemed his perspective evolved. Barkley doesn't see it that way.

Why can't it be about both?

"I wouldn't say it evolved. I think it comes with being great," Barkley said. "Name me the greats, they have some type of achievements that represent winning championships, games. I think that falls in line with the standard of what great is."

Now that he achieved it, is there something even greater?

Barkley fielded an autograph request this offseason that he was honored to oblige. He signed a helmet with all the 2,000-yard rushers in NFL history: O.J. Simpson, Eric Dickerson, Barry Sanders, Terrell Davis, Jamal Lewis, Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Derrick Henry, and now Barkley.

It sank in at that moment that he had joined an exclusive fraternity. That's why Barkley laughs at the curiosity about whether he can become the first to reach that benchmark twice. There are theories on why it hasn't happened -- the wear and tear, the attention from defenses, the natural regression at the position. It sounds easy to posit until he offers a convincing rebuttal. It's hard to do in general. There have only been nine players ever to do it!

"The reason why it's hard to do it twice is it's hard to do it the first time," Barkley said. "It's a crazy thing to even be mentioned with those guys. But for me, 2,000 yards is not the goal. It's winning the Super Bowl. ... I didn't come here with the mindset last year of rushing for 2,000 yards. It just kind of happened."

The first two weeks of the season are evidence of why it might be hard to do again. Barkley has 148 rushing yards on 3.7 yards per carry. In both games, the defenses stacked the box against him. Barkley has faced a box with seven or more defenders on 85 percent of his rushes this season. In his career, he faces heavy boxes on 76.6 percent of his rushes. Last season, Barkley saw a heavy box on 80 percent of his rushes.

"That's going to be the thing for this year: You'd be a fool if you're going to let us walk into whatever stadium ... and your focal point is not going to be stopping the run," Barkley said. He later added, "You expect defenses to have that mindset. It's a compliment, not only for me, but the guys we have up front."

Barkley's longest run this season has been 16 yards. Eagles coaches think there are plays on the verge of breaking loose, like a slugger hitting to the warning track in April. "If you don't stack the box," Barkley said, "I'm going to make you pay for it."

Sometimes, stacking the box is what leads to those big gains. The Eagles play the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday. If that induces traumatic reminders of last season for the Rams, it could be understood. The two best games of Barkley's career came against Los Angeles. He rushed for 255 yards against the Rams last November before adding 205 yards on them in the NFC divisional round. In those games, Barkley had touchdown runs of 70, 72 and 78 yards. Each came against a heavy box. The 72-yard touchdown run came with 10 players in the box.

"It's a numbers game," Barkley said in January. "When you load the box and bring extra people into the box, it's a beautiful thing. Because it's hard to run, and you got to be gap disciplined, and if we're in the right gaps -- it's hard to run against, don't get me wrong -- but I feel like myself as a back, being patient and having that home run speed, if you load the box and we get through, there's no one back there."

He's going to need those runs for another 2,000-yard season. Barkley had six rushes of 50-plus last season -- the most by any running back since Barkley had that same total in 2018. Peterson had seven when he topped 2,000 yards in 2012. Johnson had five during his 2,000-yard campaign.

The other question this year was how Barkley would respond to one of the heaviest workloads in recent memory. He totaled 482 combined touches in the regular season and postseason. That's the most by a running back since DeMarco Murray had 497 touches in 2014.

Sirianni grew exhausted with questions about Barkley's workload, and the team tries to exercise nuance with how it considers what Barkley can endure. Barkley has only played more than 14 games three times in his career, so an injury might be the nature of the position more than a response to the workload. The Eagles felt comfortable enough with Barkley being an exception to conventional norms that they renegotiated his contract after one year, making him the highest-paid running back in the NFL.

"I guess it all depends on what your definition of a high load and a low load (is)," Eagles running backs coach Jemal Singleton said. "He's got the numbers of what guys have done, but I think we do a really good job here of paying attention to what he does all week. So as we look at -- y'all just count kind of what he did in the games -- we're counting everything he did during the week, as well. And when we have to limit, we have to limit."

Barkley did not take time this offseason to confer with other 2,000-yard running backs. A student of the position, Barkley reached out to Emmitt Smith to speak about career longevity and consistency. Barkley trusts the training staff with the team and the group that he works with independently to maintain his physical condition. Singleton said the Eagles monitor him Monday to Saturday. On Sundays, the task is to use Barkley however is needed to win games. That's how he rushed for 2,000 yards -- and how the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

"Every game is not going to be 100, 150 yards," Barkley said. "My goal is not to run for 2,000 yards. It's to win football games."

There was a direct message that Barkley did not respond to a few years ago. It was not from an autograph seeker requesting his signature. It was from a young college running back named Cartavious.

That running back, otherwise known as Tank Bigsby, is now Barkley's teammate with the Eagles. Barkley searched his DMs and saw that he had missed one from Bigsby from a few years ago. Bigsby shared his admiration for Barkley then, so he's not pandering when he gushes about his new teammate now.

"I feel like he's the best in the league, if you ask me," Bigsby said.

Bigsby explained that Barkley's "different" -- and he used the famed backward hurdle that landed Barkley on the Madden 26 cover as an example. Bigsby wasn't gawking on his couch from home. He watched from the sideline as a member of the Jacksonville Jaguars. His response?

"Holy s -- !"

Bigsby's assessment of Barkley is relevant because Barkley has been outspoken about what drives him. There are enough players in the NFL who offer soundbites about being the best that the response becomes trite. Barkley is one of the few who can say it without seeming unrealistic.

"The thing that drives me is the same thing that has driven me since I was a little kid, and I've said it since I've been in the league, and I don't mean it in an arrogant way: I want to be the best running back to ever play -- or at least one of the best running backs to ever play. I don't think you can ever prove who's the best," Barkley said this offseason. "That's always been my motivation. I feel like God's blessed me with a unique ability and put me through a lot of adversity, and that's always been my mindset. The love of the game and wanting to compete and wanting to be great is always going to push me, no matter if we win four Super Bowls."

It was why he told Shipley last year that he wanted to be "great" -- and when describing what it looks like for him, he said he wants to "be the best of all-time" and cycled through attributes of players such as Sanders, Smith, Walter Payton and Marshall Faulk.

When he was told of Bigsby's sentiment -- one that Bigsby shared with him in person upon joining the Eagles -- Barkley curiously balked at the designation. He's reading a book about not comparing himself to others. So he said he's "over that" while sharing his respect for Henry, Bijan Robinson, Christian McCaffrey and Jahmyr Gibbs.

"I'm worried about myself and worried about my process," Barkley said.

He also thinks he's not yet at his best. Barkley suggested that he's in his prime, which seems odd for a player who is in the eighth year of his career. Barkley has defied expectations before, and the Eagles believe he can still do it. That's why they guaranteed his contract for 2025 and 2026.

In Barkley's second year in the system, Singleton thinks there are un-gained yards for Barkley to find, whether from eliminating mistakes on a run or angling the shoulders at the right time. They're subtle refinements, but that could be the difference between a 6-yard gain and a 60-yard gain.

"There's still a lot out there for Saquon," Singleton said.

"Every time I touch the ball," Barkley said, "I feel like we have the ability to make the big one pop."

It was most apparent against the Rams. He showed that in most games, surpassing 100 rushing yards in 13 of 20 contests.

"Teams tried to stop us last year, no one was really successful last year -- (other than) the Super Bowl, to be honest," Barkley said.

It's the Chiefs' Super Bowl game plan that other teams might try to mimic.

This goes back to the conversation about greatness. Barkley earned heightened attention from the Chiefs defense, and the Eagles dominated the game. That plan from Kansas City might have been a testament to what made Barkley great. The result of the game offered what had eluded him, opening doors that his ethereal excellence never allowed him to enter.

Want evidence?

Two weeks ago, Barkley returned to Whitehall to enter the high school's Hall of Fame. He glanced at the retired jerseys of Millen and Koppen. This was another fraternity he joined.

Hartman brought a football from his office. There was space for a Super Bowl winner's signature.

"I finally got to sign it," Barkley said.

Saquon Barkley broke records in first Eagles season. Is there an encore in 2025?