Saquon Barkley grabbed his right hamstring after a six-yard run in the first quarter Sunday and did not come back. Philadelphia lost 24-20 to the Rams at home, dropped to 2-2, and now has one healthy running back on its 53-man roster.
Mike Garafolo and Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported Barkley avoided a long-term injury and is considered week-to-week. He is expected to miss Week 5 against Jacksonville and is questionable for Week 6.
The Season Was Already Going Sideways
Barkley has 182 rushing yards on 36 carries this season, a healthy 5.1 per attempt, with zero rushing touchdowns. He has four catches for eight yards. For a back who ran for 2,005 regular-season yards in 2024 and added 499 more in the postseason, four games without a score is its own kind of alarm.
That 2024 season is what got him two years and $41.2 million in March 2025, with $20.6 million per year in new money, $36 million guaranteed at signing and up to $15 million in incentives. It made him the highest-paid running back in NFL history at the time.
The Backfield Behind Him Is Empty
This is the actual emergency. Tank Bigsby is headed to injured reserve after core muscle surgery. That leaves Will Shipley as the only healthy running back on the active roster, with Dameon Pierce and Jaydon Blue sitting on the practice squad.
Philadelphia walked into the Rams game with six starters already ruled out, including DeVonta Smith with a hamstring and Zack Baun with a concussion, plus Lane Johnson scratched late for personal reasons. Then they lost Barkley in the first quarter.
The Offense Had Bigger Problems Than Injuries
The Eagles went 0-for-12 on third and fourth down against Los Angeles. Zero conversions on twelve tries. You can blame the injury report for a lot of things, but not for that.
Jalen Hurts took responsibility for the critical fourth-down call afterward with a flat “That’s on me.” Nick Sirianni had no Barkley update immediately after the game.
How Worried Should Philadelphia Be?
No source has published a grade on the strain or a specific number of games. Week-to-week from NFL Network usually means two to four weeks for a hamstring, and hamstrings on 27-plus-year-old running backs with 400-plus touches in a recent season are not injuries you rush.
The Eagles are 2-2 on a two-game skid with a Jacksonville team coming off a road win in Cincinnati. Shipley is going to get a workload he has never carried, and Philadelphia is going to find out in real time whether this offense was built around a running back or around a system.
My guess is they get Barkley back in Week 7 and spend the two weeks in between discovering that third down was the problem all along.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.