PHILADELPHIA — What’s the best thing a general manager can do after signing Saquon Barkley and winning a Super Bowl?

Sign him again, obviously.

The Eagles really outdid themselves this time. Here all of us were, wondering what Howie Roseman possibly could do to top last year’s offseason while the answer was staring us in the face the whole time.

Why try to top it when you can just repeat it?

Rewarding Barkley with a two-year contract extension wasn’t the Eagles’ most pressing need. Their bell cow was only a year into the three-year, $37.75 million contract he signed last March. His salary-cap number was reasonable, at $7.4 million. One suspects Roseman will find a way to lower it within the structure of the new deal. Rewarding Barkley with a reported $41.2 million in additional earnings while also giving the Eagles more cap room to play with this offseason? That sounds like the kind of thing Roseman prides himself on doing.

Whatever the details, it sure feels like good juju. Remember what else happened last offseason. Not only did the Eagles sign Barkley, they signed Zack Baun. It would be a great thing to do again. We already know that retaining the linebacker is one of the team’s top priorities, given the value the Eagles reaped on his bargain-basement one-year deal.

Heck, while Howie’s at it, he should find a way to redraft Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, too.

Run it back, baby. Every single step.

In the meantime, let’s underscore a point that can’t often be made about an athlete. Whatever the Eagles were willing to offer him, he probably deserved more. You already know the stats. Probably can recite them by heart. This is more of a mantra than a reminder:

— 2,005 rushing yards

— 5.8 yards per carry

— 15 total touchdowns

— 2,283 yards from scrimmage

— 14 games of 100-plus yards, three of them in the postseason

Feels good, doesn’t it?

Ohmmmmm.

This wasn’t just a no-brainer. It was Thomas Jefferson giving a contract extension to Louisiana.

To repeat an earlier point, we’ll need to wait to see the new structure of the contract before we dive too deep into the implications. Football contracts have a funny way of ending much sooner than their nominal length. With two years remaining on his existing deal and a reported two more added, Barkley would theoretically be under contract through his 31-year-old season. That would put him right up there with Methuselah in running back years.

This season, none of the NFL’s top 60 rushers was over the age of 30. Ameer Abdullah’s 311 yards on 66 carries led all rushers age 31-plus. Cordarrelle Patterson gained 135 yards at the age of 33. That’s the extent of the sample.

Yet it almost feels dishonest to compare Barkley to his peers. One might need a different depreciation curve for a running back who is leaping over defenders in a single backward bound at the age of 27. He ain’t like us. Or anybody else.

Baltimore’s Derrick Henry was 30 years old this season when he finished second behind Barkley with 1,921 yards on 325 carries. Minnesota’s Aaron Jones sure looked OK at 30, with 1,138 yards on 255 carries.

While this new extension probably won’t guarantee that Barkley retires in Eagles green, it will presumably improve the odds that he remains here for at least another three seasons. The existing deal would have seen his cap number jump up to $21.4 million in 2027. That’s more or less a poison pill at the running back position.

Imagine three more years of Barkley like the one we saw in 2024. Last year at this time, it would have been silly to think that Barkley would come anywhere close to LeSean McCoy’s franchise record of 6,792 career rushing yards. But if Barkley averages 1,600 yards for the next three years, he’ll have it.

This is one of those contracts for which there are no hot takes. Pay the man, Howie. Maybe do it again in 2026.

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