Some people just don’t care about records. They don’t pay attention, they can’t tell you who they’re chasing, they just don’t want to be bothered.

Not Saquon.

Saquon Barkley has loved studying the NFL and the history of the game since he was a child growing up in the Allentown-Bethlehem area. He knew exactly how many rushing yards LeSean McCoy had when he set the Eagles record in 2013, and he knows exactly how many rushing yards Eric Dickerson had when he set the NFL record in 1984.

He doesn’t hide from it. He wants to break records.

“I feel like if you want to be great, you have to be able to study the greats and learn from them,” Barkley said at his locker Thursday. “That’s why, especially in my position, I try to focus on the history of the position and learning the position and watching these guys and seeing what they’ve been able to accomplish and as a competitor, I try to go out and get them.”

Barkley rushed to 1,623 rushing yards with four games remaining in the regular season in his first season with the Eagles. Dickerson passed for 2,105 yards in 16 games with the Rams in 1984, his second NFL season. So Barkley needs 483 yards — or 121 per game — to break Dickerson’s record.

Although the Eagles face the Steelers and their 4^ThSunday’s 28th-ranked run defense’s final three games are against the 28th-ranked Commanders, Cowboys and Giants^Th30^Th and 29^Th in rushing yards allowed, each between 137 and 142 yards per game.

He could really do this.

“I know a lot about Eric Dickerson,” Barkley said. “I know he has the record. He’s had it for 40 years. Obviously I heard the speech. I know the number. I know what it takes to get it.

“I’ve kind of played around with it, with the emotions I feel about it, but the attitude is that you don’t have to be afraid of it, you have to embrace it.” It’s there. Challenge yourself and try to get it. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is to win football games.”

With a big game in the next three games, Barkley could give himself an opportunity to break Dickerson’s mark before the season finale against the Giants, his former team, which could allow Nick Sirianni to take him out a week early when the Eagles are in their Game stuck playoff seed. To set the record in 16 games, he would have to average 161 yards rushing against the Steelers, Commanders and Cowboys.

If Barkley doesn’t have the record by the Cowboys game and the Eagles have nothing to play for, it will be difficult for Sirianni to use him against his former team and chase the record, or shut him down to make sure he does it is healthy. Will probably depend on how close he is to 2,105 and what Barkley wants to do.

It is important to note that the single-season record for rushing yards per game is held by OJ Simpson, who averaged 143.1 yards with the Bills in 1973. That’s 2,003 yards in 14 games. Dickerson ran for 2,105 yards in 16 games – that’s 131.6 yards per game – but Jim Brown in 1963 (133.1) and Walter Payton in 1977 (132.3) also had higher per-game averages than Dickerson.

Barkley said he began studying the great running backs and their accomplishments as a child, and he loves talking about NFL history and plans to study it more after he retires.

“As I’ve gotten older, it used to be like this for me – you don’t really have a lot of time here – but I want to be on TV,” he said. “I want to do something similar to what (Michael) Strahan did. Half of my job is about football, the other half is about other things in life. That’s the origin, so to speak.”

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