Eric Dickerson’s all-time NFL rushing record still stands for Saquon Barkley with three games left in his MVP season. Against the Steelers, Barkley had one of his weaker performances this year and had a brief injury scare in the first half. Nevertheless, he is still within striking distance.

But Dickerson isn’t entirely convinced Barkley will achieve his career goal.

“I will tell you the truth. No, I don’t want my record to be broken. Of course not,” Dickerson said in a Dec. 6 interview on 94.1 WIP. “If he breaks it, he breaks it, and I won’t lose sleep over it.”

How many yards did Saquon Barkley have against the Steelers?

Barkley rushed for 65 yards against the Steelers, in one of the Eagles’ most pass-heavy games of the season. AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith combined for 19 catches for 219 of Jalen Hurts’ 290 yards and two touchdowns. Barkley didn’t get as many snaps during the game and missed a drive in the medical tent in the second quarter.

How many rushing yards does Saquon Barkley have this season?

After Sunday’s win against the Steelers, Barkley has 1,688 rushing yards this season. He is averaging 120.6 rushing yards per game, a pace that would put him at around 2,050 rushing yards this season.

Barkley has already surpassed his career high of 1,312, which he achieved with the Giants in 2022. He also has a career-best 11 rushing touchdowns, which came in his rookie year in 2018.

Who holds the record for most rushing yards in a single season?

The current single-season rushing record belongs to Hall of Famer Dickerson, who ran for 2,105 yards in a 16-game season for the Los Angeles Rams in 1984. At his current pace, Barkley will miss the record by 55 yards.

During his 11-year career, Dickerson passed for 13,259 yards, the ninth-most in NFL history. Former Cowboy Emmitt Smith holds the all-time NFL rushing record with 18,355 yards in 15 seasons, all but the last two with the Dallas Cowboys.

“It’s one of those moments that you don’t really appreciate at that point,” former Rams guard Dennis Harrah, a teammate of Dickerson’s for more than four years, told Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski. “But when you look back, it’s really special. It was a great performance. It’s almost like the Super Bowl.”

How many more rushing yards does Saquon Barkley need to break the record?

With three games remaining on the 17-game schedule, Barkley is 417 yards away from the record. He needs to average 139 yards per remaining game to break that.

Luckily for him, the Birds’ three remaining games are against teams with weak rushing defenses. Entering Week 15, the Cowboys ranked third-worst in the NFL with 141.9 rushing yards per game. The Giants were fourth-worst at 141.7 yards per game and the Commanders were fifth-worst at 137 yards per game.

Barkley is also close to the NFL’s all-purpose yardage record

In addition to setting the NFL single-season rushing record, Barkley has a chance to set a new NFL single-season scrimmage yards record. Barkley had two catches for 9 yards on Sunday.

Barkley has accumulated 1,964 scrimmage yards (rushing and passing) in 14 games. If he plays three more games in the regular season and continues at the same pace (approximately 140 yards per game), he will finish with 2,385 yards, which is below Chris Johnson’s record of 2,509 yards set in 2009 with Tennessee.