NEW ORLEANS – The NFL has not seen a get-outta-my-way run like Philadelphia Eagles star Saquon Barkley is on since he was a toddler in diapers.

As Barkley celebrates his 28th birthday on this Super Bowl Sunday, he can blow out the candles on the cake and blow away Kansas City by achieving something nobody has seen a running back do since Terrell Davis led the Broncos to their first championship way back in January 1998.

In a league where all the rules are titled in favor of quarterbacks, Barkley can not only eclipse the NFL record for most rushing yards in a single season, but also become the first running back to earn MVP honors in the Super Bowl since Davis did it during Denver’s 31-24 upset of Green Bay a little more than 27 long years ago.

“It is a quarterbacks’ league. You need a great quarterback to get where you want to go,” Barkley said.

“But we make it so much about just the quarterback position, whether it’s a running back playing well like myself or it’s a wide receiver having a great season, we forget it’s always a team effort. I don’t know where or when it happened, but we’ve gotten so lost in forgetting how important the team is in the NFL.”

After all the intense and sometimes contentious debate during recent days about whether Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen should’ve beaten out Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson as most valuable player of the league, let me add my two cents to the discussion.

No. 1: The voters did indeed get it wrong.

And No. 2: But the real MVP was not a quarterback. It was Barkley. He left the New York Giants in free agency to sign a three-year, $37.75 million contract with NFC East division rival Philly, He led an Eagles team that suffered an epic collapse to end the 2023 season to a 17-3 record and a berth in the Super Bowl.

Is that any good?

No less an authority than Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time rushing leader, declared in an interview last week with Mike Florio that Barkley is the real MVP of this season.

After becoming the ninth NFL running back to become a member of the 2,000-yard club during the regular season, Barkley has clearly been the most dominant player in the playoffs, with three touchdown runs of at least 60 yards. He is leading a one-man running back revival. At 2,447 yards rushing through Philadelphia’s 20 games, Barkley stands only 30 yards shy of the single-season standard of excellence that Davis established nearly a generation ago.

T.D. cherishes his long-standing record, as that 1997 Denver season was the biggest, boldest line on a resume that earned him a gold jacket in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Davis, however, has boldly predicted Barkley will rush for 146 yards against the two-time defending champions in the Super Bowl to blow by his 27-year-old mark. And he’s rooting for the Eagles superstar, who is as humble and thoughtful as any player in the NFL.

Barkley has adopted a quote from Eagles coach Nick Sirianni as his personal manta: You can’t be great without the greatness of others.

“Did I really get that much better this year from the player I was in New York? Probably not. Did I do anything crazy different in the offseason to get ready to play for the Eagles? Probably not,” Barkley said.

“But it’s not an accident why I was able to rush for more than 2,000 yards. You look around me, you look at this Eagles team. I did my job. I made the plays I was supposed to make. But it all started up front, with the guys blocking and coach Kellen Moore sending in the right plays. We have a great team, a great organization and a great support staff. More times than not, if you have all that, you’re going to be successful.”

Three years ago, Philadelphia led Kansas City 27-21 heading into the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, only to watch as quarterback Patrick Mahomes rallied the Chiefs to a three-point victory.

The Eagles enter this rematch vowing to take care of unfinished business.

This time, they have Barkley, the real MVP, on their side.

While eclipsing the record of Davis would be cool, all Barkley wants for his 28th birthday is to help his Philadelphia teammates hoist the Lombardi Trophy.

“That’s the most important part, right?” Barkley said.

“The fact I’m so close to breaking all these records, but none of this matters now unless we win the Super Bowl. If I’m able to do all this, man, it would be super special.”