Saquon Barkley shouldn’t be a first-round pick in any fantasy football league next season, and it has nothing to do with the Madden Curse. I’m not even sure he should be selected in the first two rounds, given the massive gamble he represents in 2025.
I realize that sounds ludicrous, but hear me out.
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Barkley set all sorts of records this past season, but there’s one milestone the Philadelphia Eagles star hit that might have gone unnoticed amid all the massive stats he piled up. Barkley carried the ball more times this year (436, including the playoffs) than any running back this century, with one exception: 2014 DeMarco Murray, who matched Barkley at 436.
That name — and that workload — should scare the hell out of you.
At 26 years old, Murray delivered a fabulous 2014 for the Dallas Cowboys, rushing for 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns on 392 carries in the regular season to go along with 57 receptions and 416 receiving yards. He finished as the RB2 in half-PPR formats (Le’Veon Bell was awesome) before signing with the Eagles for his age-27 season. He then proceeded to deeply vex Philly fans and the fantasy owners who drafted him.
Despite appearing in 15 games that season, Murray’s production and efficiency nosedived. He delivered a career-worst 3.6 yards per carry en route to 702 rushing yards and six touchdowns to go along with 44 catches for 332 yards.
So, a year after easily eclipsing 2,000 yards from scrimmage, Murray barely made it back to 1,000 the following year. He went from the RB2 (322.6) in 2014 to the RB15 (162.1 points) in 2015.
Yes, you can counter that Murray switched teams, and the Eagles may not have been as adept at deploying him as the Cowboys a year earlier. And no, he wasn’t an abject disaster (and it’s fair to note he split carries with Ryan Mathews and Darren Sproles that season), but he was a huge bust as a first-round pick in fantasy.
Shockingly, as history is about to show you, for players who take on the workload Barkley just did, Murray’s production in 2015 was just about the best-case scenario. And all of these other examples played for the same team following their massive seasons.
Below you’ll see the 12 running backs who totaled 400-plus carries in a single season (including the playoffs) this millennium, along with their total carries and fantasy finishes that year and the year after. Full disclosure: I almost included a column that displayed total touches for no other reason than to show you how ridiculously close Barkley came to touching the ball 500 times last year. He finished at 482. That’s 54 more than Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs — a 23-year-old back being drafted behind the 28-year-old Barkley — has tallied in his first two NFL seasons combined.
Fair warning, Barkley fans. The following graphic is not pretty.
Grim, right? Murray and his RB15 finish the following year was indeed the best-case scenario. In almost every other instance, backs who shouldered this much workload went from bona fide RB1s to disasters for their league managers. Only four, including Murray, even managed to deliver RB2-type seasons, and all were around the same age as Barkley.
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You know the old fantasy adage: “You can’t win your league in the first round, but you can lose it.” This is how you lose it. Specifically, drafting Barkley in the first round this year is how you lose it.
You can go case-by-case — as I did — to see what happened to these backs, but the results won’t surprise you. Their bodies just couldn’t hold up. They either suffered significant injuries, played through injuries or simply couldn’t regain the form they showed the previous year after pushing their bodies to their limits.
Now, you might think that all these examples are dated. The NFL has undergone significant changes, and sports science has advanced substantially in the decade since Murray was in the NFL. Maybe. But I’d also suggest there’s a reason the NFL stopped giving running backs the type of workloads the Eagles just thrust upon Barkley. (No regrets! They won a Super Bowl!)
The last running back to approach 400 carries in a season was the king himself, Derrick Henry. In 2020, the then-26-year-old Titans running back carried the ball 397 times for the Titans, amassing 2,027 yards and 17 touchdowns to finish as the RB2. The next season? Henry played just eight games and finished as the RB18.
It’s also worth mentioning that entering that 2021 season, Henry had tallied 1,407 touches in his NFL career (regular season and playoffs). Entering the 2025 season, Barkley will have piled up nearly 600 more (1,996).
Of course, Henry recovered in 2022 and has been one of the most consistent backs in fantasy since. Perhaps Barkley will prove to be even more resilient and deliver in 2025. He could defy all of the odds, but knowing what we know about his predecessors, there’s no other way to look at this: He’s a terrible bet to deliver RB1 production this season.
The good news is that you don’t have to make that bet. Just don’t take him. Go with one of the elite receivers, like Ja’Marr Chase (who, coincidentally, The Athletic’s Jake Ciely has as the 1.01 pick this year), or if you’re hellbent on drafting an RB, Gibbs, Bijan Robinson, Ashton Jeanty and Derrick Henry are much better bets to return RB1 value.
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What you should do, instead, is short the Barkley market. Let others draft Barkley while you target his backups, Will Shipley and AJ Dillon. According to Fantasy Pros’ consensus data, Shipley is RB78 and the 269th player overall, while Dillon is RB107 and the 349th player overall. In other words, they’re free. And if/when Barkley goes down, you’ll have a starting running back playing behind one of the best offensive lines in football.
Finally, and this should go without saying, if you’re in a dynasty league, it’s time to move on from Barkley. Now. You can still likely get a massive haul from a contending team. Even if the managers in your league are wise enough to read articles like this, the temptation to add the consensus RB1 for the 2025 season will be too much to pass up. Take advantage.
(Photo by Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
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