This article marks the third entry of my preseason season-long player props, with an aim of having one NFL prop for each team. The point of this series isn’t just to fire off 32 random bets I like. There are so many season-long markets out there that it can get overwhelming pretty quickly, so I wanted to use this series as a way to go team by team, show how I’m projecting each offense/team, and then land on one actionable NFL betting takeaway.
A lot of these prop lines are going to move quickly once I bet them and post them. That’s just part of the game at this point — but that’s also why I think the reasoning matters even more, not less.
If the market moves off my number, I don’t want the reaction to be, “Welp, the prop is gone. Moving on.”
I want this to still be useful because the writeup is really about how I’m thinking through the team, the player usage, the range of outcomes, and where the market may still be mispricing things.
The bet is just where the process led me. The process itself is what I think makes the series worth following. And with that, let's get into my season-long prop for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Eagles Prop Bets
- Saquon Barkley Over 7.5 rushing TDs +100 (DraftKings)
- Saquon Barkley to lead the NFL in rushing TDs (+3000)
- Jalen Hurts Under 8.5 rushing TDs (-105)
Barkley’s “Disappointing” 2025
Saquon Barkley is coming off one of the best “disappointing” seasons in NFL history. In reality, there was nowhere to go but down after a career year in his first season with the Eagles in 2024, when he rushed 345 times for 2,005 yards and 13 TDs.
Barkley set the NFL record for the most total rushing yards in the regular season and playoffs — aided by the 17-game schedule and Super Bowl run — with 2,504 total rushing yards. He also set an NFL record with 6 TDs of 60+ yards.
Coming off a 400+ touch season, regression was coming — but it hit harder than anyone expected. He ended with a 280/1,140/7 rushing line while averaging just 4.1 yards per carry, a 1.7-yard drop-off from 2024.
Barkley was going to see TD regression when it came to 60+ yard TDs, and he did, with just 1 TD of 60+ yards last season. But where he ended up having brutal luck was on rush attempts inside the 5-yard line. He scored only 1 TD on 14 attempts inside the 5.
Before I explain just how unlucky he was to come away with only 1 rushing TD, let me first highlight that Barkley has been a below-average goal-line back over the last three seasons.
I created a metric to grade how good RBs are on rushes inside the 5-yard line called VULTURE (“Variance Under” the guise of “Luck Touchdowns Under Rushing Expectations”), where I create an estimated percentage chance for that specific running back to score a TD on these attempts. That way, we aren’t simply assigning the league-average rate of around 40% to every back. Some backs are better than others on these specific carries.
As always, there is a ton of variance on these attempts, so I blend in the league average heavily. But if a RB has, say, 30+ rush attempts inside the 5-yard line over the last three seasons, we are going to be a bit more confident in his rate describing his skill than we would be for a RB with only five carries.
Barkley has the lowest VULTURE weight at 29%. That means I would estimate him around a 29% chance to score on any attempt inside the 5-yard line going forward. He’s 3% below the next four lowest-graded backs: De’Von Achane, Alvin Kamara, Blake Corum, and Woody Marks.
So even factoring in Barkley maybe not being an above-average goal-line back, I estimated him to score closer to four rushing TDs inside the 5-yard line last season, three more than his actual total (one). That +3 difference made Barkley the unluckiest back inside the 5 last year. Travis Etienne was 2nd at +2.1.
I watched all 14 of his rush attempts since I would never have time to do this during the regular season — the main takeaway was that his 1-for-14 mark looks brutal on paper, but the actual plays told a more nuanced story.
Some were dead on arrival due to penetration or play design, some were inches away from being TDs, and a couple were literally called TDs on the field before being overturned. So before writing this off as “Barkley can’t score at the goal line,” I think it’s worth walking through a few of the plays that really stood out:
- Chris Jones got into the backfield before Jalen Hurts could even hand the ball off to Barkley. He had a 0% chance to score and Jones wrapped him up for a 1-yard loss.
- Barkley had a similar run where Byron Young of the Rams stuffed him for a 5-yard loss. The Rams sniffed it out, and the fact that the Eagles ran it out of shotgun led to the huge loss.
- Barkley had a 5-yard TD run against the Lions get reversed because he was ruled down at the 1-inch line.Hurts scored on a 1-yard run out of the tush push on the following play. Not only was it brutal luck for Barkley to be down at the 1-inch line, but the team didn’t even let him get another crack at it.
- Nearly the same thing happened in Week 16 against the Commanders: Barkley scored a 2-yard TD, only for it to get reversed after review and ruled down at the 1-inch line. However, instead of Hurts getting a 1-yard TD run from the tush push, the Eagles were called for a false start on the play. The league had started to crack down on calling false starts on the tush push. That set up the Eagles with 1st and goal from the 5, and Hurts threw a TD pass to DeVonta Smith on the following play.
What I noticed is poor-designed runs for Barkley where, given the play design, his blocking, and the defense’s anticipation, he really had no chance. It's hard to assign much fault to him.
Other times, he had brutal luck in almost scoring. Other times, his potential scores were overturned. And often times the Eagles resorted to the tush push on the following play.
The Tush Push Wrinkle
That takes me into the other reason I think we could see Barkley’s touchdown rate bounce back in a big way in 2026.
While the NFL has seemingly given up on effectively “banning” the infamous tush push, officials started to call false starts on the formation at a much higher rate last season.
Teams had been complaining that the Eagles tend to move before the snap and/or were lined up offsides, but the play is so chaotic and bunched up around the ball that it’s been tough for officials to figure out what the hell is going on.
As a result, we saw the play go from a 2.2% false start rate in 2024 up to a 15% rate in 2025. Not only that, but the play itself started to become less effective even when they weren’t flagged. The league has come up with creative ways to stop it at a higher rate, with the Bears taking it a step further by punching it out of Hurts’ hands for a fumble they recovered.
The Eagles brought in Sean Mannion as their new offensive coordinator, and Nick Sirianni has essentially given him the keys to this offense. I imagine Mannion keeps the tush push alive and well in Philly, which is somewhat ironic because he is coming over from Green Bay, the very team that proposed banning the tush push.
However, there is at least a chance Mannion dials it back at a lower rate going forward. False starts are especially killer at the goal line and may be enough reason to shy away from the tush push in certain spots — the Eagles could use a more traditional QB sneak, or simply hand it off to a running back.
We already saw the Eagles dial it back inside the 5-yard line last season, where a false start would be the most costly. Hurts rushed it nine times inside the 5 in the first half of the season and only three times in the second half.
Mannion is also likely to get the running game back on track and potentially not use Hurts out of shotgun nearly as much. Being a bit more unpredictable could help set up Barkley with better rushing lanes.
All of this could lead to Barkley getting more rushing work around the goal line while also seeing his longer rushing TD upside come back a bit. But on top of all of that, he’s simply due for better luck when it comes to those rush attempts inside the 5 turning into TDs.
Because of this, I think the market is a tad low at 7.5 rushing TDs, and I would have Barkley closer to a coin flip at 8.5 rushing TDs.
Buy Barkley's Big-Time Upside
Given the uncertainty around the future of the tush push, a potentially much better offensive scheme, and positive regression, I think it makes sense to also take Barkley at +3000 to lead the league in rushing TDs in addition to over 7.5 touchdowns.
Obviously, I agree with Derrick Henry, Jahmyr Gibbs, Jonathan Taylor, and even James Cook being the clear favorites in this market. But I have Barkley in a group of around six backs behind them where we could see someone emerge and lead the league if things break their way.
We already know Barkley has massive upside — he had 13 TDs two seasons ago — even when the tush push helped Jalen Hurts rush for 14 TDs. That’s a lot of TD equity that could be up for grabs if the Eagles mix it up a bit more when they get into 1st and goal from the 1-2 yard line.
Barkley is absolutely worth a flier at this price.
Bet Jalen Hurts Under 8.5 Rushing TDs (-105)
This was the play I was originally going to give out, but after a deeper dive, I ended up loving Barkley’s upside to go over and lead the league in rushing scores even more.
Hurts has been the beneficiary of the tush push over the years and managed to rush for 10+ scores in four straight seasons from 2021-2024, topping out with 15 in 2023. However, we started to see the league combat it on multiple fronts last season.
While it’s still technically legal, there is a chance we see the Eagles continue to shy away from it at times, especially inside the 5-yard line, where a false start call is even more detrimental.
We will see how Sean Mannion handles it, and I think there is a wide range of outcomes. Maybe he comes in and fixes the tush push, the Eagles return to calling it at a higher rate, have more success with it, and Hurts ends up with another 10+ rushing TD season. Or maybe they abandon the play further and call more traditional QB sneaks, give it to Barkley, or even use Tank Bigsby in RB short-yardage runs.
I have Hurts projected closer to 7.5 rushing TDs, so I do see value on under 8.5. But this is obviously a much wider range of outcomes than most 7.5 rushing TD props. The same goes for Barkley.
Much of this comes down to how often the Eagles use the tush push, how effective it is, how officials call it, and whether Mannion shifts more short-yardage work back toward the RBs.
Where we end up on that wide range of outcomes remains to be seen, but the trendline certainly points to potentially fewer attempts for Hurts inside the 2-yard line.
Going back to the Barkley bet, he specifically should have had around three more rushing TDs inside the 5-yard line last year. He had 2 TDs called back and placed at the 1, with Hurts getting an attempt on the very next play. There were other times Barkley was stopped at the 1 and Hurts punched it in on the next play.
Barkley punching in a few more TDs inside the 5 has a direct impact on Hurts’ projection as well. There is a ton of correlation between both props, and I wouldn’t be shocked if I go either 2-0 or 0-2 on them.
The scenario where I go 2-0 would also make the Barkley to lead the league in rushing TDs bet more likely to hit as well.
