Barkley is out, and the Eagles are now asking Dameon Pierce and Will Shipley to carry an offense that has lost almost everything around them

Saquon Barkley's hamstring injury is the latest piece to fall off an Eagles offense that started the year already missing A.J. Brown and has since watched Dallas Goedert, DeVonta Smith, and now its lead back exit in sequence. The depth chart at running back lists Dameon Pierce first, with Tank Bigsby questionable and Will Shipley behind him. That's the hand Philadelphia is playing.

Barkley ran for 1,246 yards and caught passes out of the backfield well enough to be a genuine second option in the passing game last season. He was, quietly, the most complete offensive player left on this roster once Brown was traded and Goedert went down. The receiving room right now is Britain Covey, Xavier Gipson, and whoever else they can dress — the same group I noted two weeks ago was already thin before Smith got hurt. Hurts can still manufacture yards on his own, but the threat of a complementary run game is what keeps defenses from loading up on him, and that threat just got considerably smaller.

Pierce is the name at the top of the depth chart, and that's not a knock on him — it's just the situation. Shipley has been active and healthy, which matters. My read is the Eagles lean on Hurts' legs more than they'd like to in the Rams game, which is a fine short-term plan until it isn't. The margin this offense is operating with right now is about as thin as it gets.