Week 12 fantasy football recap: Is Saquon Barkley the new Christian McCaffrey?

The Sunday night matchup between the Eagles and the Rams was an electric one, with Philadelphia coming out on top 37-20 despite it being a six-point game at half.

But while the Eagles earned a big win under Jalen Hurts‘ lead, he wasn’t the most impressive player on the field on Sunday.

Saquon Barkley was out of this world.

The seventh-year player had a career-high 255 rushing yards, two rushing scores and four receptions for 47 receiving yards. He set the single-game franchise record for rushing yards, passing LeSean McCoy who had 217 in 2013. Barkley also became the first player in Eagles history to total 300 scrimmage yards in a single outing.

But where does this performance rank from a fantasy football perspective? We broke down the numbers and found that Barkley’s Sunday night performance was the best of any running back this season, and ranks in the top 10 single-game performances among all running backs over the last five seasons— from all three scoring standpoints (half-point points per receptions (PPR), full-point PPR, standard)

This made us think, is Barkley the new Christian McCaffrey of fantasy football? Over the last five seasons, the Penn State product has seven 30-point fantasy performances (full-point) while McCaffrey has six. When looking at half-point PPR leagues, he has six 30-point games while McCaffrey drops to four. CMC is statistically a better pass-catching back, but Barkley’s explosive play has made up for it.

Since 2020, he’s got six rushes of 50+ yards which trails only Derrick Henry and Jonathan Taylor. When looking at 50+ yard rushing touchdowns, he’s got three— which is tied for the third-most behind Henry and Taylor. For perspective, “CMC” has three 50+ yard rushes and one 50+ yard rushing score. On Sunday, Barkley had two rushing scores of 70+ yards, becoming the first player with multiple 70+ yard rushing touchdowns in the same game since Maurice Jones-Drew in 2009.

FOX Sports Research has broken down the running backs with the most 30-point fantasy games from all three scoring perspectives. While Barkley doesn’t quite rank first in any of the below lists, you’ll quickly see how his play this year will likely get him there. Let’s take a look:

MOST 30-POINT GAMES

RUNNING BACKS

SINCE 2020 (FULL-POINT PPR)

Derrick Henry: 10
Saquon Barkley: 7 (five have come this year)
Alvin Kamara: 7
Austin Ekeler: 7
Christian McCaffrey: 6
Josh Jacobs: 5
Joe Mixon: 5
Jonathan Taylor: 5

MOST 30-POINT GAMES

RUNNING BACKS

SINCE 2020 (HALF-POINT PPR)

Derrick Henry: 9
Saquon Barkley: 6 (five have come this year)
Austin Ekeler: 6
Alvin Kamara: 6
Josh Jacobs: 4
Jonathan Taylor: 4
Joe Mixon: 4
Christian McCaffrey: 4

MOST 30-POINT GAMES

RUNNING BACKS

SINCE 2020 (STANDARD)

Derrick Henry: 9
Alvin Kamara: 4
Saquon Barkley: 3 (all three have come this year)
Jonathan Taylor: 3
Dalvin Cook: 3
Josh Jacobs: 3
Joe Mixon: 3
Christian McCaffrey: 3

As seen above, the bulk of Barkley’s 30-point fantasy games have come this year. This prompted us to take a look at what McCaffrey’s numbers looked like through the first 11 games during his historic season last year, and the numbers were eye-opening.

The 49ers star had 272.8 fantasy points through 11 games in 2023 in full-point PPR leagues, 248.8 in half-point leagues, and 224.8 in standard scoring leagues.

Barkley? This year he has 265.9 in full-point PPR leagues, 252.4 in half-point leagues, and 238.9 in standard scoring leagues. That means Barkley has more points than CMC did at this point in the season in two of the three scoring systems used in fantasy football.

Breaking it down even further, the Philly running back has 1,649 scrimmage yards and 1,392 rushing yards— while McCaffrey had 1,328 and 939 in his first 11 games in 2023.

That huge gap in yards is where Barkley has made up the difference that McCaffrey got through his incredible amount of receptions. If he continues at this rate, “Super Saquon” will likely be the top ranked fantasy player heading into 2025.

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