Star Philadelphia Eagles Running Back Saquon Barkley Calls in to the Stern Show
Star Philadelphia Eagles Running Back Saquon Barkley Calls in to the Stern Show
Super Bowl champ talks to Howard about his road to the top, ex-team the Giants, and Taylor Swift
Star NFL running back Saquon Barkley had a phenomenal 2024 season, setting league records in rushing and scrimmage yards, including playoffs, and winning the Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles — his first. But there’s an alternate universe where none of this happened and where the All-Pro in fact never seriously pursued football at all. Making his Stern Show debut over the phone on Wednesday, Barkley admitted to Howard that he almost quit the sport when he was just a teenager.
“I was immature, wasn’t doing great in school, it wasn’t going my way, and I kind of wanted to quit,” he told Howard before crediting his father with a piece of advice he still lives by. “He said, ‘You quit one thing in life you’re going to be quitting for the rest of your life,’ and that put me back on the right path and shifted my mindset, and I just started grinding and grinding away harder.”
As he explained to Howard, proving something to his former team — the New York Giants — was one of several sources of inspiration this season. “Has [that] crossed my mind? Yes, I’m super competitive. Did I feel disrespected at the time? Yes, 100 percent,” he said of leaving the organization in 2024 to sign an impressive three-year contract with the Eagles. “But the thing that drives me the most is being obsessed with wanting to be great … I’ve been through a lot, had a lot of ups and downs and injuries and adversity, but here I am, and I never lost hope, never lost faith, so this is my moment.”
“It’s a business. It’s the NFL,” Barkley continued. “I took it more as a motivation [to show] my story’s not done, and I can continue to add more chapters to the story.”
Check out more highlights from his conversation with Howard (below).