Super Bowl 2025: Saquon Barkley's championship victory with Eagles is one last slap in face to Giants

NEW ORLEANS

When Saquon Barkley left the Giants and signed with the Eagles in March, his daughter Jada asked a simple question.

“Does this mean we are going to win now?”

Their time with the Giants had been draining on everyone. One season above .500 in six years, plenty of unfortunate injuries, more coaches and executives than he could count.

Eleven months later, 6-year-old Jada was there sitting on her father’s lap on an interview podium deep underneath the Superdome and finally getting her answer.

Yes. Yes. Fifty-nine of ’em.

“There was a lot of winning this year,” Barkley said of the best season of his career, the best season any running back has ever put together. “And the most important thing is that we won the Super Bowl.”

The NFL season ended Sunday the only way it could, the way it felt destined to culminate for fans of a certain two NFC East teams since March — with one last pie to the Giants’ face from Barkley and the Eagles.

Barkley won his elusive Super Bowl title. His former team? They were left LIX-ing their wounds over letting him walk down the Turnpike to Philadelphia one more time, now in front of all the world to witness.

At least Barkley wasn’t the obvious reason the Eagles trounced Kansas City, 40-22. That may have been far too much for the Giants and their still grumpy fans to handle. This gave them a shred of consolation. Kansas City was able to keep him relatively contained, but that focus allowed Jalen Hurts to march the Eagles up and down the field with relative ease. Hurts was named MVP of the game and the Philadelphia defense dominated.

When the Eagles signed the free-agent running back to a three-year, $37.75 million deal, they thought Barkley would be able to put them over the top. It turned out they were the ones who did it for him.

At the two-minute warning, Barkley already was out of the game, hugging his Eagles pals on the sideline. One big bear hug went to general manager Howie Roseman. Recalling that embrace made Barkley a little teary-eyed.

“I can’t get emotional with all these cameras in front of me,” he scolded himself. “Sometimes you have to keep the faith and have people around you who believe in you. From Howie to Nick [Sirianni, the Eagles’ coach], the O-line, the love that they poured into me the whole year, it just helped me. It helped my confidence. It helped me play at a high level. And here we are, world champions.”

Barkley said getting that notorious phone call from Giants general manager Joe Schoen did rattle him.

“You have that moment and you realize you will hit free agency and everyone is talking about how they view the running back position,” Barkley said.

He asked his agent what he thought would happen and was told to trust in him. “He got me an amazing deal,” he said, “and the rest is history.”

Eagles history, and of course Giants history.

The buzzwords around Barkley before his departure from the team that drafted him with the second overall pick in 2018 were about him being a “Giant for life.” That obviously did not work out contractually. Barkley, though, will always be a Giant no matter where he goes. Everything for the rest of his career will be a referendum on the Giants, and Schoen in particular.

He may be an Eagle now, a Super Bowl champion as an Eagle, but he will always be a Giant miscalculation, and that is something the organization will live with long after this season is looked back on by all involved.

At least the embarrassment is somewhat over now and the Giants can stop cringing . . . for a while. There is not much more Barkley can do to further embarrass the mismanagement that led to his arrival in Philadelphia.

He’s already been named NFL Offensive Player of the Year, run for 57 yards with 40 receiving in the biggest game of his life to make him the most productive single-season rusher in league history, and put his hands on a Lombardi Trophy after six years of never getting closer to one than standing on the other side of the glass trophy cases in East Rutherford.

“Hell of a year, right?” he said.

As for that big silver football handed to him on the field, Barkley said: “Man, did she look pretty in person. It’s better in person than it is in Madden playing as a kid. I’m just happy to hold it and give it a kiss.”

He kissed Jada, too, and she had another query for her father.

“What was your favorite birthday gift?” she asked him on this day he turned 28.

“Being able to celebrate the Super Bowl with you, S.J., Mommy, Grandma and Grandpa, and all my brothers and sisters,” he said.

No more questions.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.