By admin 
PHILADELPHIA – It seems like Nick Sirianni gets asked the Saquon Barkley question every week.
Barkley already has 177 touches for 1,071 yards from scrimmage through the Eagles’ 6-2 start, an average of 22.1 touches per game. That’s good for 376 touches in 17 games for the three-time NFC Offensive Player of the Week this season.
Sirianni has been pretty consistent in his mindset of doing what it takes to win games.
“You try to take care of them and do what you have to do to win every football game,” the Eagles coach said.
From the start, team sources have said Barkley’s load management will take place during the week and Sirianni made that sentiment clear on Monday.
“You try to take care of (the players) all week,” he said. “…So you try to keep an eye on it as much as possible. And that’s really our job on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and being aware of that on Sunday.”
Barkley was estimated as a limited participant in Wednesday’s walkthrough with a rest designation and appeared to start another shortened day on Thursday. The superstar likely won’t do too much heavy lifting in practice for the rest of the regular season.
The Eagles have also had the luxury of being starters in a pair of recent wins against the Giants and the Bengals, where they were able to give backup Kenny Gainwell and rookie WIll Shipley some touches instead of adding to Barkley’s odometer.
“I think in the two games — obviously not the last game (against Jacksonville), but the game before that and the game before that — we were able to get him out in the fourth quarter,” Sirianni said.
The idea behind this approach is the common sense view that you cannot legislate injuries, but you can somewhat limit the grind when it comes to preparation.
“We always have to take that into consideration with all our players with load management. I think our strength and conditioning staff, our trainers and our doctors give me really good insight into how to do that,” Sirianni said.
“And really give our employees good insight into how to do that. Yeah, (it’s always) always on our minds with how many touches he has.
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