PHILADELPHIA — It’s a time-worn Philadelphia tradition: fretting over the future rather than relishing the moment.

As the city wrings its hands over the fate of its latest Super Bowl champion, few seem to appreciate that, less than three weeks ago, the best season any Eagles team ever had ended with a blowout win in Super Bowl LIX over Andy Reid, currently the NFL’s best coach, and Patrick Mahomes, currently the NFL’s best player.

Maybe it’s a case of gluttony — too much winning in too small a span, what with three Super Bowl appearances in the last seven years after two in the game’s first 39. Maybe it’s a case of overstimulation; the Eagles have their all-time best receiver, best receiving tandem, best running back, best offensive lineman, and best offensive line, and the defense features at least five young standouts with superb ceilings. Any embarrassment of riches breeds greed.

It is a waste of energy.

Don’t worry about whether pending free agents Zack Baun and Milton Williams return. Who cares if losing offensive coordinator Kellen Moore will make things difficult for quarterback Jalen Hurts. The Eagles won big, and the guy who took them there — a local guy, sort of, and a Penn State guy — is under contract for two more seasons. Life is too short. Sports are too fickle.

In this moment, what Saquon Barkley did in 2024, over and over and over again, should be savored.

I’ve been here for 30 years. There has been nothing like this. Not this kind of production. Not this many highlight-reel plays.

Barkley didn’t win the league’s MVP award — it’s lately been reserved for quarterbacks who can’t win in the playoffs — but he should have. MVP or not, nothing in my three decades in Philly compares with this. Not Bryce Harper’s MVP season, not Joel Embiid’s MVP, not Allen Iverson’s MVP. They were great.

Barkley was beyond great.

He scored 10 rushing touchdowns from 34 yards or more, 17 from outside 20 yards; had TD catches of 20 and 18 yards; and had four rushing touchdowns of 60 yards or more in the playoffs. He logged the ninth 2,000-yard season with 2,005, which ranks eighth. He set the all-time record for rushing yards, including playoffs, at 2,504 yards. He did it early in the season when he was fresh, late in the season when he was tired, and in the playoffs, when it mattered most. He had a career’s worth of seminal moments in 21 games.

Finally, and incredibly, he is of such high character that one of his top-five moments of the season involved his declining to play.

5. Marching in vs. the Saints

It was the first Big One.

On second-and-5 at the Eagles’ 35, Barkley ripped off a 65-yard touchdown run at New Orleans on Sept. 22. The Eagles trailed, 3-0, at the time, with 13 minutes, 27 seconds to play.

It was a simple handoff. Barkley ran through a big hole opened by left tackle Jordan Mailata and left guard Landon Dickerson. Mailata pushed the defensive end inside to Dickerson, then blocked an onrushing linebacker. Saints cornerback Alontae Taylor chose to cheat on a possible wide-receiver screen with a target that would have been Parris Campbell (Parris Campbell!?), so Taylor vacated the space immediately behind the line of scrimmage.

By the time Barkley took his sixth step, he was hitting cruising speed, running away from defensive backs. He scored untouched.

It was one of his two touchdowns on a day when he was, essentially, the whole offensive show. He also punched in a two-point conversion. The Eagles won, 15-12, keeping them from starting a disastrous 1-2.

4. Snow Bowl II

It was one of his biggest plays, weighted because it happened in the divisional playoff game against the visiting Rams on Jan. 19, and because it was the second-best cinematic moment of the season (the best one follows).

Again, Barkley simply followed blocks on the left side, then blew past Rams defenders, who were exhausted and frozen after playing 55 minutes of football in a snowstorm with a 27-degree wind chill for a 78-yard touchdown. The Eagles led by a touchdown, and he’d already given them the lead with a 61-yard touchdown run — which meant he’d scored rushing touchdowns of 72, 70, 61, and 78 yards against the Rams alone, since he torched them twice in LA during the regular season.

What made this one different was:

“I was ‘crashing out,’ as the kids say,” Barkley said. “I don’t know why I was doing that.”

We know why he was doing it. He was doing it because he knew that, soon enough, he would be carrying the Eagles to Super Bowl LIX.

3. The backward hurdle

It was Game 9, in the middle of the season, and the Eagles needed a spark. Enter Barkley.

He caught a pass in the left flat behind the line of scrimmage, wide open, but Jaguars cornerback Tyson Campbell had him dead to rights, or so it seemed. Barkley shimmed left, broke right, and Campbell whiffed. Linebacker Devin Lloyd was next; Barkley planted his left foot, spun right, and lost Lloyd.

Then, the coup de grâce: Barkley’s momentum kept him spinning, so after his next two steps, his back faced corner Jarrian Jones. No problem. Barkley jumped over Jones.

Backward.

It wasn’t a scoring play, and it helped set up only a field goal, and it went for only 14 yards — he was immediately dropped after the hurdle. It wasn’t even the key play of the drive; that was a 20-yard third-down pass to A.J. Brown with the Eagles pinned at their 14. It might not even be the best play he made in that game; earlier, he’d snared a 20-yard, over-the-shoulder touchdown catch to make it 7-0 on the first drive of the game.

But it probably will be the signature play of his career, because of its audacity, its difficulty, and because nobody had ever done it before.

His teammates erupted on the field and on the bench, and marveled at the man for months. However, in the middle of the following week, Jones put it best:

“He is touched by God.”

2. ‘Let the young boys eat’

Barkley was 13 yards from breaking his single-game career high in rushing yards, and he was doing it in his first game against his old team, the Giants, and doing it on their turf. The Giants had given up. Barkley was unstoppable. He probably would have broken the record with one or two more carries.

He already had runs of 55, 38 and 41 yards, the last one his final play of the game, even though it was just the third quarter. Barkley had also driven the defensive line backward for the game’s first touchdown, and demolished safety Dane Belton, running him completely over. There was nothing left to prove, and Barkley has a generous heart.

So, when Eagles coach Nick Sirianni found Barkley on the bench and asked him if he wanted to go back into the game to break the record, Barkley declined:

“It’s all good. ... I’d rather see the young boys eat.”

One of the young boys, Kenneth Gainwell, was sitting three feet from Barkley. Gainwell overheard the conversation. He shook his head in admiration.

As did we all.

1. Gut punched

I saw every snap Saquon played this season. I’ve seen every significant play in Philadelphia sports in the last 30 years, most of them live, including big home runs from Matt Stairs, Shane Victorino and Harper; Chase Utley’s deke; Iverson’s step-over; and, of course, the Philly Special that helped win Super Bowl LII.

This play was the only play that left me speechless. Jaw-dropped. Agog.

It might not resonate the same way for most folks, but for me, it was the statement play of the best season of the best team in Philadelphia sports history, save for the 1983 Sixers.

The Commanders opened the NFC championship game with an 18-play field goal drive that burned half of the first quarter. How would the Eagles respond? Simple.

Jalen Hurts pitched the ball to Barkley, who ran to the left. A.J. Brown, Mailata and Dallas Goedert blocked three guys. Barkley ran through a sandwich tackle attempt from Jeremy Chinn and Quan Martin. He then cut back to the middle and dispatched Mike Sainristil. Then he outran everyone else to the end zone.

One play. Sixty yards. Touchdown.

It was a gut punch. The Commanders never recovered.

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