January 14, 2026
The Eagles had a Tank all season and mainly left it parked in the driveway.
Despite a run game that toiled week by week, despite Tank Bigsby averaging almost six yards per carry, despite the Eagles giving up two draft picks to acquire him after Week 1, the Birds used their top backup running back far fewer than other teams used their backup ball carriers.
Bigsby, who has one of the NFL's highest yards-per-carry averages since he entered the NFL in 2023, backed up one of the league's best in Saquon Barkley, but Bigsby carried the ball at a much lower rate than the backups to San Francisco's Christian McCaffrey and Atlanta's Bijan Robinson.
In total, Bigsby carried the ball 58 times on 364 total Eagles runs by a running back, a 16-percent clip. That put his usage more comparable to Bills backup Ray Davis and Ravens backup Keaton Mitchell.
While Bigsby rushed for 766 yards in his second season in Jacksonville, Cook has never ran for more than 450 yards in a season and has a much lower career YPC average (4.2). Mitchell is an explosive changeup who has a much higher YPC (6.3) than Bigsby but also 160 fewer carries.
The 5-foot-11, 215-pound Bigsby is a powerfully built, compact ball carrier with decent explosion who specializes in yards after contact – hence the nickname "Tank." (His given name is Cartavious). But the Eagles didn't give him a single carry in any of his first five games with them and just one in his sixth.
Bigsby never carried the ball more than four times for the Eagles in any one-possession game, except the season finale when coach Nick Sirianni rested starters.
Barkley took the sixth-most carries in the NFL. Here's a look at Bigsby's usage rate compared to the backups for the NFL's top ball carriers.
| Starter | Backup | % RB Carries |
| Jonathan Taylor | DJ Giddens | 6% |
| Christian McCaffrey | Brian Robinson | 23% |
| James Cook | Ray Davis | 14% |
| Derrick Henry | Keaton Mitchell | 15% |
| Bijan Robinson | Tyler Allgeier | 33% |
| Saquon Barkley | Tank Bigsby | 16% |
Maybe the new Eagles offensive coordinator in 2026 – whoever that is – will figure out how to get Bigsby more involved, especially with Barkley turning 29 nexth month and entering the 2026 season with the NFL's second-most touches since his 2018 rookie season, behind only Derrick Henry.
Henry is a 250-pound unicorn who's built like a linebacker and has never missed a full season in any of his 10 years playing for the Titans and Ravens. Only once has Henry played fewer than 15 games.
The 233-pound Barkley isn't small by any stretch but he's a ways from 250, missed almost all of his second NFL season from a torn ACL, and took a beating for six seasons with the Giants playing behind one of the league's worst offensive lines. Then he came to Philadelphia and has touched the ball more than 700 times in two seasons.
Barkley has averaged more touches per game in his career (20.6) than Henry (18.6). On Monday, at his locker clean out, Barkley said he's more than OK if the new coordinator decides to take the Tank out for a few more spins each week.
"I am all about winning football games," Barkley said. "I think my resume kind of speaks to that since I've been playing football, not even just ... since I started playing football at 8 years old but from when I was 18 at Penn State until now. If that's what's something that the team feels will help, I think Tank is a hell of a back and I will be all about that if it's going to help us win football games."
Barkley ran for 106 yards and logged 29 more touches in Sunday's 23-19 loss to the 49ers in the NFC Wild Card round. Bigsby ran four times and averaged almost 5 yards per carry.
Only 12 running backs in the entire league have a higher YPC than Bigsby (4.6) on at least 280 carries, and nine of them are Pro Bowlers. One of them is Barkley, so it's somewhat understandable why the Eagles are reluctant to take their superstar off the field.
But Barkley had to earn his yards a lot harder this season compared to 2024, when he led the NFL in carries and touches before adding 104 more in the playoffs.
This year,bper Next Gen Stats, Barkley was hit behind the line of scrimmage on almost 50 percent of his carries, the ninth-highest rate among 49 running backs with at least 100 attempts and almost 10% more than his 37.7% rate during the Super Bowl run.
Barkley didn't miss a game because of injury for the second straight season, something he said he "could take pride in," adding "there was no cut, no run I feel like I couldn't make."
But he only has one more pre-age 30 season left, and with someone as good as Bigsby behind him, the Eagles might find it more valuable to gas up the Tank just a little more often.
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