PHILADELPHIA -- Eric Dickerson's single-season rushing record will stand for another season.
Philadelphia eagles head coach Nick Sirianni announced Wednesday that the team plans to rest some starters in the Week 18 regular season finale against the New York Giants. That includes Saquon Barkley, who enters Sunday's game 101 yards shy of breaking Dickerson's single-season rushing mark of 2,105 yards.
Sirianni mentioned the Eagles having a Week 5 bye as factoring into the decision. The Eagles will be ending their season playing 12 straight games, which is not including the playoffs coming immediately after. Philadelphia is locked into the No. 2 seed after the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings won this past week, eliminating the Eagles from getting a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Eagles will open the playoffs in the wild-card round next week against the Washington Commanders or Green Bay Packers.
In addition to Barkley, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts remains in concussion protocol and isn't expected to play this week with the No. 2 seed intact. Sirianni didn't provide an update on No. 2 quarterback Kenny Pickett, who left Sunday's win over the Dallas Cowboys after aggravating his broken ribs he had during the week leading up to the game.
Barkley will finish the season with 2,005 yards in 16 games, the eighth-most by any player in NFL history. He'll finish the season averaging 125.3 rushing yards per game, which would have put him on pace to pass Dickerson. If Barkley did play 17 games at that pace, he would have finished with 2,130 yards.
Barkley was also 107 yards away from becoming just the third player with 2,400 scrimmage yards in a season -- joining Marshall Faulk (1999) and Chris Johnson (2009). He'll finish the season with 2,293 scrimmage yards, which is a franchise record.
