ESPN's Mike Greenberg pushes back on Saquon Barkley claiming 2024 Eagles are top-five team in NFL history

Saquon Barkley helped bring the Eagles their second Super Bowl this past season, during Year 1 for the running back in Philadelphia. It was a phenomenal run for the team, one that has the running back comparing his team’s success to some of the greatest teams of all time.

“I firmly believe when you look at our team that we had last year — I know we’re not looking too far into the past — but our team last year, I think we’re a top five team of all time,” Barkley said, via an episode of the Exciting Mics podcast with his teammates Reed Blankenship and Cooper DeJean. “I tell my boys this all the time.

“We started off 2-2, and we lost to Washington. Jalen [Hurts] got hurt that game. But if you really look at the season outside the first four games, it was belt to ass. How dominant you guys were on defense and how dominant we were on offense and special teams, people don’t realize how great of a team that actually was.”

It’s easy to see why Barkley is high on the performance his team put forward during his first season with the Eagles, but ESPN’s Mike Greenberg doesn’t agree. He thinks there’s a bit of bias in Barkley’s claim, and that Philadelphia’s 2024 resumes can’t compete with some of the NFL’s best of all time.

“The Rams had them dead to rights in a playoff game, by the way, in their building. If it hadn’t snowed, I still think they would’ve won it. Let’s be realistic here, they’re nowhere near one of the five greatest teams of all time, but I have no issue with them feeling that way,” Greenberg stated, via Get Up on Friday. “Winning the championship means never having to say you’re sorry.

“… I’m not in any way taking away from what the Eagles did, but if you go back over individual seasons in NFL history, and you look at some of the most dominant performances, including one that ended in an undefeated season, and the ’85 Bears and the 2000 Rams. The list of the greatest NFL teams of all time, the ’84 Montana-led San Francisco 49ers teams. We could pick out individual teams here and that would end this discussion.”

Evidently, Greenberg isn’t the only one at ESPN with these feelings. His colleague Dan Graziano echoed his sentiment. Although he does understand why Barkley may feel like the 2024 Eagles could take on any and all challengers.

“I would think a top five team of all time would have had to have the best record in the league in their season, which the Eagles didn’t do,” Graziano added. “They were exceptional, I mean, there’s no question about it. They were exceptional on both sides of the ball. They kicked the living you know out of one of the greatest teams we’ve ever seen in the Super Bowl, right? The Chiefs dynasty. It is so fun to spend the offseason as the team that won the Super Bowl. You give zero foxes about anything anybody has to say about you. You control people with t-shirts. You can say you’re one of the greatest teams of all time.

“Fact of the matter is, we’re gonna find out. If it’s sustainable, they will sustain it. If not, then, you know, we’ll forget Saquon ever said this. But right now? I understand why he feels that good about that team. By the end of the season, they were outstanding.”

All told, the Eagles deserve their respect, but naming the 2024 iteration of Philadelphia’s franchise a top five team in NFL history is a little rich for most. Regardless, Saquon Barkley is confident, and we’ll see if he can make it two-for-two with the franchise this coming season.