Everyone saw video clips of Saquon Barkley's instant classic reverse hurdle move against the Jaguars, but somewhere out there is a person who only saw a photo of it and didn't get what the big deal was. This photo may be the perfect example of sports being too weird and marvelous to capture in a single frame.
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00:00We are very lucky to live in a world where the second some cool or insane thing happens
00:06on the field of play during a game, we can pull up video of that moment on our phones
00:11or computers or on the broadcast and we can watch the replay again in real time just as
00:16it was the first time it happened.
00:19Photos are different.
00:20While they're still in the same realm as video in terms of being a faithful visual
00:25historical document, the fact that a photo is so atomic and so indivisible in its nature
00:31can completely change the context of a moment.
00:35Freezing an event down to one singular image tells a different story.
00:40It's a little bit like an MRI slice, perfect for diagnosis and instructive of the whole,
00:45but with a different context, it becomes its own work of art.
00:50And for our work of art today, this is the MRI slice I have chosen for Saquon Barkley's
00:57insane, I don't even really know how to describe, backwards hurdle.
01:02I don't know if you saw this when it happened during the game.
01:06His burdle.
01:07If you were to see this photo without knowing what happened, you might think either he's
01:11jumping forwards or that he was like dropped out of a helicopter.
01:14Right.
01:15I mean, you're describing the phenomenon of you see a photo of yourself and you're like,
01:18there's no way I look like that in video.
01:20I look cool.
01:21Right.
01:22Or what was, what was even happening here?
01:25Yeah, no, you definitely, you totally do.
01:28Yeah.
01:29You absolutely do.
01:30You look amazing.
01:31I picked this photo a couple of reasons.
01:33One, yes, it's very difficult to tell out of the context of the video and the things
01:39that are happening just before and after.
01:40It's hard to tell exactly what is happening.
01:43But two, this photo on its own kind of is impressive.
01:49Like I think if you looked at this, you would go, wow, he's just straight up hurtling over
01:54this guy.
01:55The context that you're missing, as you described, is the fact that his whole ass is the leading
02:02point of his body here and he is full on going backwards.
02:06And you would not know that if, had you not seen the play in real time or on video.
02:13If somebody saw this photo without seeing the highlight, how long would it take them
02:17to pick up on the one primary context clue that like not everything is normal in this
02:23moment?
02:24I, and here's the thing is I think there is really only one thing in this image that could
02:31possibly tip you off that he's, that things are not as they are.
02:36And it's the fact that Jerry and Jones is facing the wrong way.
02:41Like they would have to be running in the same direction downfield for Saquon Barkley
02:47to be lurching over Jerry and Jones.
02:49Yeah.
02:50You could read this as it's a forward hurdle over the worst attempted tackle in NFL history.
02:56A guy who is very clearly confused as to what team he is on.
03:01Oh, clueless Jones, he'll switch sides halfway through the play.
03:05Terrible defender, but great in the locker room.
03:08He's just sees everyone running at him and he goes, Oh shit.
03:11And he just turns and starts running the same way.
03:12I'm going to donkey kick that guy.
03:14So what happened?
03:15I saw Saquon was going that way.
03:17And so I thought that maybe they were like giving out free snacks.
03:20So I turned, I thought we were going back to the locker room.
03:23That's all it was.
03:24He's going so fast.
03:25I figured there has to be a fire.
03:26There must be something is horrible, horrible, must be something cool that way.
03:30I think if you want to get really forensic with it, I believe I can see some chunks of
03:35grass.
03:36There's some grass that tell you that are in the wake of the action.
03:40I got to be honest with you, I did not even notice that when I pulled this photograph.
03:43The only comparison my brain can make for this photo is it's like a wildlife photo of
03:48a gazelle trying to evade lions.
03:51Unless I jump in some direction to throw them off, I'm dead.
03:56Like he invented this in the moment, right?
03:58You don't practice.
03:59Oh, this is not like Air Jordan.
04:01This is not like a thing that he's known for.
04:04This was 100% to Will's point, pure instinct.
04:09And I think he talked about it after the game.
04:11He knew Jones was going low and he was kind of momentum had him already kind of turning.
04:18And all he knew was like, I got to get high.
04:22And then his body just kind of took over from there.
04:25I don't think he anticipated the perfect clamshell folds that he took.
04:32The fact it was Saquon, I think adds something to the mystique.
04:35It's like one more on the pile.
04:36But if you then invert it and it was like, this was Joe Flacco doing this, oh my God,
04:44like call the season there.
04:46Give him every award.
04:49That is if he survived the attempt, which I can't guarantee he would.
04:53What if someone failed attempting this maneuver, like subtract four inches from Saquon's vertical
04:58here and you have a helmet directly in the hole.
05:01We are coxsacks there.
05:02Sure.
05:03We are coxsacks.
05:04Sure.
05:05You're getting howled.
05:06I would love one time for my own moment of like creative, stylish improvisation to go
05:10this well.
05:11Oh, sure.
05:12The last time I can remember being like, I'm going to do something a little fancy just
05:16to see how it goes.
05:17When you wore shorts.
05:18Oh, that was horrible.
05:19Can we give it another year before we talk about that?
05:21And I have plenty of photos of that too, Chris, if we could put them out.
05:25There are just so many chains.
05:28For real though, last summer, sometimes if I'm close enough to my driveway, when I'm
05:33walking my dog, if I pick up her poop and I tie it up in the bag, I just throw it into
05:37my driveway because I'm like, I don't have to carry it around with me.
05:39We'll keep walking.
05:41So Trudy pooped across the street and I was like, you know what?
05:43And this happened all very quickly.
05:45I'm going to chuck this bag of dog shit behind my back into the driveway.
05:49I don't know why, but I'm going to do it.
05:51How to work.
05:52And in the process of doing it, I realized A, that my neighbor was watching and B, that
05:57the bag of dog shit was going to end up directly on the hood of my car, which at the same time
06:03leading up to that, your brain is making other calculations that ultimately result in this
06:08doesn't matter.
06:09On the flip side, this, there's no hood of a car for Siguan to land on if he doesn't
06:15stick this.
06:16No.
06:17Yeah.
06:18He's on TV and there's a helmet headed for his anus.
06:21It's interesting hearing him talk about the process of this because your traditional hurdle
06:26in the NFL is a really cool feat of athletic ability on its own.
06:31But it makes sense because you see a guy with the ball running towards another guy who's
06:35trying to stop them.
06:36They go low.
06:37Guy with the ball has enough time, spatial awareness to be like, I'm going to try jumping
06:41over him.
06:42If it works, it's really, really sick.
06:44If it doesn't work, you're kind of like, yeah, that's the con of trying to jump over somebody.
06:48I'm trying to make a play.
06:49Moving on.
06:50Yeah.
06:51I think this was like, maybe the football equivalent is when Tony Romo evaded a J.J.
06:58Watt sack where J.J. Watt was screaming in off his blindside and Romo just like did a
07:04spin move that I think they both have talked about since, of just like, don't know how
07:08that happened.
07:09Yeah.
07:10What sense are you even using here?
07:11It's like, I think I was going to make the joke that like Jones didn't see this coming.
07:15Literally Siguan also couldn't see this coming.
07:18His back's to the situation.
07:20Yeah.
07:21That's the important thing too.
07:22It's not like what you described where he had like room to run and then he was like,
07:26I'm going to try something really fucking cool.
07:28Yeah.
07:29And then turn and then did this.
07:31He's probably like two or three yards away, maybe less.
07:36And like I said before, his momentum is already sort of carrying him like kind of this way.
07:41So when he does finally get here, like I said in that interview that he was talking about,
07:46his only thought is up.
07:48Yeah.
07:49This is like a salmon evading a bear where you're like, I only have so much control over
07:53my body at this point.
07:55Right.
07:56And you sort of surprise yourself, as I'm sure Siguan Barkley did for even for as athletic
08:00and incredible at this as he is with what your body can do kind of on its own in like
08:07a split second decision.
08:10Well what his body can do.
08:13I can do that.
08:14I try this and I'm Bill Gates jumping the chair.
08:18And it got me thinking about other sports photos that are kind of like this, where the
08:23moment itself is incredible, but then the one photo that popped out of it is almost
08:28like you're watching a completely different thing.
08:31I thought a lot about the Olympic surfer from the Olympics this summer, Gabrielle Medina,
08:38who was like flying off of his board, but also like waving to someone like this and
08:43is like perfectly straight.
08:45Run on the waves.
08:46And then also just an amazing moment that just gets like one little MRI slice from time
08:51is like this is its own little thing.
08:53So that's almost the inverse of this.
08:55The photo makes him.
08:56The video is very impressive, but the photo makes it look more surreal.
09:00Very nonchalant.
09:01Yes.
09:02Surreal.
09:03Yeah.
09:04Yeah.
09:05Whereas in this case, the photo is almost underselling how amazing this thing was.
09:08Going that line to, I also thought of the Dwayne Wade, LeBron James alley-oop, where
09:15he's kind of already making the pose and LeBron's not even really.
09:18You didn't know watching on TV that that had happened quite as precisely.
09:24There's also a lot of good NBA moments of a guy getting hit in the face with a ball
09:28or accidentally kicked in the face when a guy is trying to jump and contest his shot
09:32that like it all happens so quickly in the course of a basketball game that even on replay,
09:37you can't quite get how unlikely it is.
09:41That is part of this, by the way, it's just like, this doesn't happen in real life.
09:44People don't jump over each other forward or backwards out on Broad Street.
09:48Well, this is going to turn into like a Tik Tok prank.
09:51We're going to be taekwondoing each other.
09:54Yeah.
09:55I do think the word that you use that is really summing this up is surreal.
09:58I was talking about how the photo divorced from the moment is almost its own moment.
10:05I think if you were to watch the video and look at the photo and then watch the video
10:09again, it's still like almost can't believe this is the same.
10:13I see where you're going with this.
10:14It was faked.
10:15Is that what you're saying?
10:16Yes.
10:17This was done on a studio.
10:18And if you look extra closely, you'll see the strings.
10:22The moment that jumps to mind for me is Bobby Orr's Stanley Cup winning goal.
10:27I think Stanley Cup winning goal.
10:28The goal he scored where he's then flying through the air.
10:31And so there's the really famous photo of him.
10:34It's from 1970.
10:36It's this iconic photo.
10:37As much time as it takes for Saquon to leave the earth, jump over a guy and return is about
10:45the same as Bobby Orr getting the shot off, leaping over the bodies and then landing back
10:51down.
10:52And they caught the photo mid flight.
10:55And so you're kind of like, here's this totally different perspective that you can understand
11:00the context of the moment.
11:02But when you're only analyzing the photo, you're just kind of like, I know this body
11:06shouldn't be going this way.
11:07I think what makes this impossible to capture with a photo to fully do it justice is that
11:13it's reverse.
11:15He's doing something normal for a football player that with the few exceptions that we've
11:19pointed out, impressive, but ordinary here, except that it's in reverse.
11:23And a photo cannot tell you the chronology of the event, it cannot tell you the order
11:29of operations.
11:30I don't know the frames that came before and after this.
11:33If I showed you a photo of a guy hitting a home run and I was like, the ball is actually
11:38the ball traveled 400 feet out of the bleachers and he caught it on his bat.
11:44Or if I showed you a photo of a guy dunking and I was like, he's pulling the ball out
11:48of the basket.
11:49Then you'd be like, whoa, that's way more impressive than I thought.
11:52And that's what's going on here.
11:53Yeah, absolutely.
11:54I mean, now I'm curious what he looks like actually doing it in reverse.
11:58If you reverse this, is it just like, oh, cool, I have that.
12:04It's a leapfrog.
12:05It's like a traditional leapfrog if you play it that way.
12:08It does look so much more like a typical hurdle than I would have expected.
12:12Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:13The one thing I think that's giving it away is that Jerrion Jones is kind of like backing
12:18up under his leg.
12:19Right, right, right.
12:21That's, yeah.
12:22Okay.
12:23Focused on Saquon, things look normal.
12:24And that looks, it looks like a circus trick.
12:27Yeah, yeah.
12:29It looks like a little Cirque de Soleil.
12:30Saquon doing things backwards might be a really good thing to just do normally.
12:37Yeah, this is just modern dance.
12:39This is really satisfying.
12:40This is Alvin Ailey shit.
12:41You know what's the craziest part of this that we haven't mentioned?
12:44What?
12:45You farted.
12:46He did fart.
12:47And that's why the towel is kind of doing that thing.
12:48Yeah.
12:49I would say that is my least favorite thing about photos.
12:51You can't hear the farts.
12:53Yeah.
12:54And you can't smell them.