Ahead of Eagles-Ravens, Bo Jackson recalls injury that changed NFL history

Imagine Eagles running back Saquon Barkley roaming center field for the Baltimore Orioles instead, earning MVP at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Then, picture him bringing the same electricity and athleticism to the Philadelphia Eagles in the middle of every October.   

Then, imagine the unthinkable: Barkley having the type of season he’s enjoying this year only to sustain a career-ending injury. The franchises were different – Bo Jackson’s teams were the Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Raiders — but 34 years ago, that was the life lived by Jackson, No. 34. And almost as quickly as he stole the hearts of Americans, he sustained a hip injury on a routine tackle at the end of a 34-yard run in a playoff game against the Bengals – and his NFL career was over.

“I wasn’t supposed to be playing,” Jackson remembered this week on the Get Got Pod with Marshawn Lynch and Michael Robinson. “It was Cincinnati, and I feasted off Cincinnati. It was like Thanksgiving. I’m not bragging but for some reason I had my best games against Cincinnati … A couple of weeks before that, I slightly hyperextended my knee. So, I was running at three-quarters’ juice. And I was on the sideline; I could’ve stepped out of bounds and continued the play. I didn’t feel the need to step out of bounds. ‘Hell, I got 6-8 more yards that I got to get.’ Got it, went down wrong. It wasn’t the tackle; it was the fact that (Kevin Jackson) grabbed me up top and slid down, and locked onto one leg. And I pulled the left leg free and took that one step.

“When he locked down on my right leg, I stopped instantly in my track but my momentum kept going forward. So, something had to give, either my hip or the worst knee blowout in sports.”

Barkley already overcame one of the worst knee blowouts in sports, his torn ACL in 2020. And he can play with confidence when he leads Philadelphia (9-2) into Baltimore (8-4) on Sunday (4:25 p.m. ET, CBS). Even though he turns 28 in two months, the same age as Jackson when his NFL career ended, the NFL, the NFL Player’s Association and medical science have made incredible progress in the 34 years since Jackson’s injury. The league now has a department at its Manhattan headquarters devoted exclusively to player health and safety. It works closely with the union to implement measures and policies toward keeping star players on the field. Plus, medical advances may have saved Jackson’s career had he played in 2024.

That’s great news for everyone, including the Ravens’ Derrick Henry. In a serendipitous moment on the NFL schedule, Henry goes head to head with Barkley on Sunday. Barkley leads the league in both rushing (1,392) and scrimmage yards (1,649) while Henry ranks second in both categories (1,325 and 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 Adrian Peterson and Houston’s Arian Foster).

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