Giants running back Saquon Barkley prepares for rowdy Eagles fans
Giants running back Saquon Barkley against Tampa Bay at MetLife Stadium on Nov. 18, 2018. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Saquon Barkley has played at Lincoln Financial Field just once in his life. As a freshman at Penn State, he had one carry for a yard there against Temple. But he grew up in not-so-far-away Whitehall, Pennsylvania, so he knows that playing there on Sunday with the Giants will not be on that level.
“Growing up in Pennsylvania, knowing Eagles fans, I know that they’re different, let’s put it that way,” he said with a grin. “That’s the best word I can use for them.”
Barkley said the majority of his friends from high school and college are Eagles fans. Most of them still are.
“They say they’re Eagles fans, but they’re Barkley fans,” he said. “They’ll wear a Saquon jersey, but they’ll be Eagles fans still. Just coming from Penn State, a lot of those people I see on social media will be like, ‘It kills me to root for you, but I still do.’ So that’s cool to see that.”
Lincoln Financial Field, of course, has a reputation for being among the rowdiest stadiums in the NFL. No one knows that better than Giants coach Pat Shurmur, who coached in Philadelphia for 13 seasons. He said it is one of his favorite places to play — as a home or visiting participant — “because it’s a highly emotional, competitive environment.”
“The fans are into it,” Shurmur said. “I think most venues are that way when you’re on the road, but I know the Eagles fans intimately. They love their team.”
And they despise the Giants, who have won only once in their last six visits to Philly. Their last victory at the Linc was in 2013, making Eli Manning and Zak DeOssie the only members of the team to have won there as a Giant.
“They’ve been good teams,” Manning said when asked for a reason for the Giants’ skid in South Philly. This will be his 16th time playing there. He appeared in his first NFL game there, and there is a chance this will be his last time there with the Giants.
Not that Manning is counting or dwelling on any of that. Asked if the stadium atmosphere gives the Eagles more of an advantage than, say, the Cowboys or Redskins have in their stadiums, which are other hostile arenas for the Giants, Manning said: “No, I don’t think so.”
But The Linc does have a mystique.
“It’s a different atmosphere,” receiver Sterling Shepard said. “The fans are pretty rowdy and they can play a pretty big factor in the game.”
Only 11 players on the Giants' roster were even in the NFL when the Giants last won there. Barkley was a 16-year-old junior in high school. He and his buddies likely were down in the dumps about the Eagles’ loss that day.
Might the crowd take it easy on Barkley because of his roots in the surrounding area?
“Hopefully,” he said. “But I do not expect that whatsoever.”
Nor will he be taking it easy on the Eagles in his first of what likely will be many games at the home of the Giants’ division rival. The Giants lost in their first 2018 meeting with the Eagles at MetLife Stadium, but Barkley had a fine game with 130 rushing yards and 99 receiving yards.
“They got us one time, they got us early in the season, and now they’re the next game on our schedule,” Barkley said, “so we have to get them back.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
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