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Saquon Barkley has carried the Eagles to the Super Bowl and nearly doubled his base salary for next season.
Barkley ran for 118 yards and three touchdowns in the Eagles’ 55-23 NFC Championship game win against the Commanders to bring the franchise back to its second Super Bowl in three years. The team will face the winner of Bills-Chiefs in the AFC Championship game.
The win netted him a $250,000 bonus, that will be added to his 2025 base salary. The 27-year-old’s incredible season has seen him hit nearly every major contract incentive he had on the three-year $37 million contract he signed with the team this past offseason after leaving the Giants.
In the regular season, Barkley became the ninth player to rush for more than 2,000 yards, which came with financial incentives. By passing 2,000 yards rushing, Barkley netted a $250,000 contract bonus. He had previously earned a $250,000 bonus for hitting 1,500 yards rushing and receiving—combining for $500,000, which will be added to his 2025 base salary. He added another $500,000 by being voted first-team All-Pro on Jan. 10—raising his 2025 base salary by $1.25 million after Sunday’s win, which nearly doubles the $1.375 million base salary he started the season at.
Barkley is set to earn $13.5 million for the 2024 season, including base salary ($1.375 million) and signing bonus ($12.1 million). His contract is on an escalator, meaning his 2025 base salary will currently start at $2.92 million after accounting for the $1.25 million added in bonuses.
He has one more bonus left to hit, too. Barkley will add another $250,000 bonus if the Eagles win the Super Bowl. Should they win, Barkley will have added $1.5 million on bonuses and his 2025 base salary will start at $3.17 million.
NFL players earn money for each playoff win, too, and Barkley has netted three bonuses, each worth $54,500 for the Eagles winning the NFC North, beating the Packers in the wild-card round, and the Rams in the divisional round. Sunday’s win also earned him (and all Eagles players) $77,000. That’s an additional $240,500, which comes to $1.65 million in total bonuses when adding in Barkley’s contract incentives—more than his $1.375 million base salary for the season.
Barkley’s decision to pass on breaking one record should allow him to break another and potentially earn more off of it.
He sat out the team’s regular season finale despite being 101 yards shy of Eric Dickerson’s NFL rushing record.
Barkley could have added to his piggy bank by breaking Dickerson’s record and being the NFL’s rushing king. But saving himself for the playoffs will likely earn him more money, aside from contract incentives.
“The estimates are he’s making $10 million in endorsement deals already,” Bob Dorfman, a sports marketing analyst who tracks athletes endorsement potential, told Front Office Sports. “I think if you weigh it, the chances of him getting another $3 million to $5 million by a strong Super Bowl performance and getting a ring is greater than if he had broken the rushing record. Maybe you’re talking about another couple million [had he broken Dickerson’s record].”
Barkley will enter the Super Bowl 30 yards shy of Terrell Davis’s single-season rushing record. That record—2,476 yards—includes the playoffs and was set in 1998 when the Broncos repeated as Super Bowl champions.
Barkley entered Sunday’s game 148 yards shy of passing Davis and took out a big chunk early by scoring a 60-yard touchdown on the Eagles’ first play from scrimmage. As the Eagles put the game out of reach, Barkley was on the sidelines for the team’s final scoring drive of the game, delaying his chance to break Davis’s record by another two weeks.
“Records are nice, but winning is better,” says Doug Shabelman, the CEO of Burns Entertainment, which negotiates endorsement deals for celebrities, to FOS.
Barkley might wind up with both.
