Offensive Players of Week: Saquon, Tua capture Week 12 honors

Saquon Barkley and Tua Tagovailoa played pivotal roles in extending Eagles and Dolphins winning streaks on Sunday. Each has another starring role in a marquee game on this week’s NFL schedule and each player has another addition to his 2024 résumé after claiming the respective NFC and AFC Player of the Week awards, the league announced Wednesday.

In selfless fashion, Barkley led Philadelphia (9-4) to a 37-20 road win over the Rams on Sunday night, the Eagles’ seventh straight win. They became the second team all-time to reach 150 rushing yards and multiple rushing touchdowns in six consecutive games, joining the 1949 Philadelphia Eagles. The center of that attack, Barkley posted a career-best and franchise-record 302 scrimmage yards, ninth most ever in an NFL game. Combined with his 198 scrimmage yards in Week 11, Barkley is the third player in NFL annals with 500 over a two-game stretch, joining Hall of Famers Walter Payton (1977) and Ollie Matson (1954).

Barkley’s career- and franchise-best 255 rushing yards against the Rams included a pair of long touchdown runs and made him the sixth player ever with multiple rushing touchdowns of 70-or-more yards in a game. Only Hall of Famers Lenny Moore (1956) and Barry Sanders (1997) as well as John Fuqua (1970), Frank Gore (2009) and Maurice Jones-Drew (2009) have done that. On a torrid pace, Barkley leads the league with 1,649 scrimmage yards, the second most by a player in his first 11 games with a team in NFL history, behind only Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson (1,726 with the L.A. Rams).

And in a serendipitous moment on the NFL schedule, Barkley and the Eagles make the short trek to Baltimore (8-4) on Sunday (4:25 p.m. ET, CBS), where they face off with Derrick Henry – who ranks second behind Barkley in both rushing (1,325) and scrimmage yards (1,421). The last time the league’s leaders in scrimmage yards met in Week 13 or later was 2009, when Tennessee’s Chris Johnson squared off with the St. Louis Rams’ Steven Jackson. And, the last time players with 1,300 rushing yards faced each other was Week 16 in 2012 (Minnesota’s Peterson and Houston’s Arian Foster).

Tagovailoa, meanwhile, led Miami to a dominant, 34-15 win over New England and jumped into AFC playoff contention. He threw for 317 yards and four touchdowns while Jaylen Waddle had 144 yards and a touchdown on eight catches to help Miami register its first season sweep of the Patriots in 24 years, since 1999-2000.

During the Dolphins’ three-game winning streak, no other AFC quarterback has more passing yards than Tagovailoa (812). He also has eight touchdown passes, only one interception and a 117.9 rating in that season-turning stretch.

And like Barkley, Tagovailoa has a gargantuan game this week. Miami (5-6) needs a win in the nightcap of the John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC) to keep pace with the Broncos (7-4) and Chargers (7-5) in the race for the AFC’s final playoff berth.

Having returned from a concussion that sidelined him four games, Tagovailoa also has put himself in the Pro Bowl discussion among AFC quarterbacks.

For more information on the Eagles and Dolphins, visit the Philadelphia and Miami team pages at ProFootballPost.com.