How Jemal Singleton helped Saquon Barkley make football history originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
NEW ORLEANS — The first thing Jemal Singleton noticed when he watched film of Saquon Barkley was that he tried to do too much. Too much needless movement. Too many extraneous moves. Too much dancing around.
What if, the Eagles’ running backs coach wondered, Barkley could streamline his form with the football in his hands. He was already one of the better running backs in the NFL. What if he could become an even more efficient runner?
He dreamed about what it would look like. And then he helped make it happen.
“In the offseason, when I evaluated Saquon, the first thing I came up with was, ‘You know what? He needs to do less,’” Singleton said Wednesday at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside, the Eagles’ home this week.
“And I told him, ‘Hey, we need to work on you doing less. Let’s see if we can get even more efficient with this amazing talent that you have.’
“And I think the good thing for me is that when I first got into the league (with the Colts in 2016), the first running back I ever coached was Frank Gore. Frank Gore was in his later years, he was 33 years old, and then I got to spend a year with Marshawn Lynch (with the Raiders in 2018), and he was also an older back, 32, 33 years old.
“What I learned from those older backs was that they had learned how to be efficient. They had learned how not to do all that extra stuff that’s not really helping them. They realized the other stuff doesn’t matter anymore. It’s how to get from point A to point B and what’s the best way to do it.
“I always thought, ‘If I can ever get a young running back to think like an old running back, wow, what would that look like?’ And that’s what I’ve tried to do with Saquon, just simplify some things and help him do less.”
And that more efficient, less dancy Saquon Barkley is having maybe the greatest year of any running back in NFL history.
You know all the numbers by now – 2,005 regular-season yards, 442 postseason yards, 20 touchdowns, a 6.0 average and seven 60-yard touchdowns. With a game to go.
The numbers are tough to even fathom.
Barkley may be the single-biggest reason the Eagles are playing in the Super Bowl Sunday. And Singleton may be the single-biggest reason Barkley has been as lights-out brilliant as he has.
Barkley lights up when you ask him about Singleton and how he’s helped him take his game to the next level.
“There’s so much,” he said. “The biggest thing for me that sticks out in my mind was a conversation that we had coming into the season where he kind of expressed how he views me as a player and how I need to start viewing myself as that and that this year could be a year we can we can do something special and basically challenged me to do that and let me know that he has my back. And we’ve been doing some special stuff this year.”
It’s quite a challenge getting a running back who’s already made two Pro Bowls and had three 1,000-yard seasons and guiding him to the next level.
Singleton pushed Barkley harder than he’s ever been pushed and Barkley embraced the challenge.
“I watched everything after we got him,” Singleton said. “His runs, his catches, his blocks, everything. How can I help him get better? He’s got strengths, he’s got weaknesses. If I can just help those weaknesses maybe become a strength, then ultimately he’s becoming a better player.”
During that evaluation process after the Eagles signed Barkley, Singleton noticed that he didn’t always set his shoulders square before the ball was snapped, which put him at an immediate disadvantage. That was another early lesson for Barkley.
“I know one thing: When my shoulders are parallel, I can see the whole field. But if I turn, I cut off the whole section of the field,” Singleton said. “So now, you put a guy that can make every cut in the book, has the vision, and now he can see things better and now he can do all those things he does so well – he can jump, he can cut, he can move.
“There’s a clip in the last game we played, the tight zone where he steps into the hole, he’s perfectly parallel and then, ‘Boom!’ He bounces, and he set up the backer. He saw visually that he could get out of there quicker than him. If his pads aren’t even? Maybe he doesn’t make that play. That wasn’t something he had been taught.”
It’s one thing for Singleton to understand how to help a player like Barkley. It’s another thing for an established superstar to accept what a new coach is teaching.
But Barkley and Singleton clicked from Day 1 because Singleton knew how to help Barkley, and Barkley realized it.
“I told him you’re the highest-rated back I’ve ever seen, and there’s no ceiling on you,” he said. “Let’s not put a ceiling on you this year and see what that looks like.
“I told him my job is just to help you get to be the best you can be. And he’s very receptive. He’s coachable. He wants to be great. And it’s just been a lot of fun coaching a young man that is as talented as he is but also as humble as he is.
“Who on the team doesn’t speak highly of Saquon? They love him. They all love him. And that just adds to why we’re doing the things we’ve been able to do. It’s been amazing.”
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