Saquon Barkley and his mom smiling all the way to the Super Bowl

 PHILADELPHIA

Tonya Johnson laughs a lot these days. And why not? Her son, Saquon Barkley, has one more game remaining in what could go down as the most productive season for a running back in NFL history. He also is one victory away from winning a Super Bowl title in his first year with the Eagles.

But she delivered a telling chuckle outside the locker room at Lincoln Financial Field that told how she really feels about the journey her baby boy has been on from the time he entered the NFL as the second overall draft pick in 2018 to Sunday, when he scored three touchdowns in the Eagles’ 55-23 win over the Commanders in the NFC Championship Game.

Johnson was asked if Barkley could have had this level of success with the Giants, the team with which he spent the first six years of his career, had he remained there.

“You really want me to answer that?” she said after her guffaw.

She wouldn’t. Not expressly.

“Everybody else knows why it didn’t happen,” she said. “It’s great for him to be somewhere where he can finally showcase his talent without people talking about this, about that, running backs don’t deserve this, don’t deserve that. Yeah, OK. Now we see.”

While Barkley has mostly taken the high road since he left the Giants as a free agent, moms are afforded a different level of grudge-holding. She and those closest to him clearly remember the arduous negotiations, insulting offers and snarky aspersions made during the last two years of his time with the Giants, when he played on the final year of his rookie contract and then under a franchise tag before walking out the door as a free agent.

Barkley signed a three-year, $37.75 million contract with the Eagles. Now he’s where he is — Super Bowl Saquon — and the Giants, well, they are where they are, back home after a three-win season without him.

“I was not disappointed,” Johnson said of Barkley leaving the Giants. “Because there were better things to come. One door closes and another one opens, and the one that opens may be much better.”

Whenever Barkley talks about the decision he made to join the Eagles 10 months ago, he mentions what it meant to his family more than what it meant to his bank accounts. As the confetti fell on the field Sunday evening, that still was his priority. While the rest of the team was celebrating and hoisting a trophy and giving interviews, Barkley was scouring the field for his loved ones.

“My family has to do a better job of getting to the field a little earlier,” he said. “But that was the only thing on my mind. I didn’t even go on the stage. I just wanted to have that moment with my family.”

“I never saw him that happy,” his father, Alibay Barkley, said after they all came off the field. “I saw him that happy when he was first introduced to football when he was a young kid. That’s how it goes. You try to get a goal, you never get it, then you get it. It’s good.”

This may have been only a practice postgame reunion, anyway. The real one may be in two weeks if the Eagles can win Super Bowl LIX against Kansas City in New Orleans . . . which happens to fall on Barkley’s 28th birthday.

Those unspoken reasons Johnson referenced for Barkley not being able to achieve this level of play with the Giants were on full display by the Eagles on Sunday.

Barkley ran for 118 yards and three touchdowns on 15 carries, scored on his first two touches — including a 60-yarder on the Eagles’ first play from scrimmage — and essentially sealed the win with a 4-yard touchdown with 7:58 left that made the score 48-23. That’s a pretty epic afternoon. But, as Barkley said, “it takes all of us,” and that was never something he had in his favor with his previous team.

He never had a quarterback like Jalen Hurts, who had three rushing TDs of his own plus a 4-yard TD pass to A.J. Brown. He never had an offensive line like the one that pried open gashes in the Commanders’ defense for him to easily scoot through. And he never had the kind of savvy system like the one that allowed the Eagles to make a dummy check on that first play to fool Washington into adjusting for a run in one direction, only to have Barkley and the ball go the other way for the score.

“I’ve always known who I am,” Barkley said. “Sometimes it takes longer than others. I didn’t envision it taking seven years. I didn’t envision even being in Philly; I thought I could accomplish this in New York. But there is no timing better than God’s timing.”

Barkley himself has refused to badmouth any part of his experience with the Giants. “I am not the guy I am today without all those people in New York, whether that’s fans, whether that’s teammates, whether that’s coaches and trainers,” he said, noting that  the medical staff helped him overcome the knee and ankle injuries that  held him back at times. “I’m definitely thankful for everything I had over there.”

But when it comes to his family — not just his parents but his “lady” as he calls her, Anna Congdon, and their two daughters — he is happy that they get to experience winning for a change.

“It was tough times in New York, and not meaning just wins and losses,” he said. “Life, injuries. I’ve grown a lot. I still have so much more to improve . . . [For them to] see that smile on my face, to see me go out and make those plays, it means a lot.”

Barkley gets to play in the Super Bowl. His family? His mom? They get something just as good: The last laugh.