Giants 2023 UFA Primer: RB Saquon Barkley

The Giants would like to have Saquon Barkley back, but on their terms. Will Barkley agree to those terms?

Saquon Barkley, RB

Height: 6-foot
Weight: 232 lbs.
Age: 25
NFL Exp: 5 Years
College: Penn State

Just like when he takes off through the gaps for a 30-yard touchdown run, the rookie contract of running back Saquon Barkley has flashed before our eyes.

A native of the Bronx who moved to Pennsylvania for his high school and collegiate days, Barkley was selected second overall by the Giants in the 2018 NFL Draft, the first slew of draft picks made by then-general manager Dave Gettleman.

Hailing from Penn State University, the 25-year-old would play three seasons on the Nittany Lions football team, scouring 671 carries for 3,843 yards and 43 touchdowns on the ground and 102 receptions for 1,195 yards and eight touchdowns out wide. His talents would earn him two Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year recognitions and multiple All-Big Ten team nods.

The initial embrace by the New York faithful on draft night wouldn’t be as welcoming to Barkley. Many pundits and fans watching thought the Giants reached significantly for a running back at the No. 2 pick, especially for a position with its concerns with durability in recent history.

Gettleman thought Barkley was an incredible talent too worthy of passing up, even to the point of describing him as “touched by the hand of God” and a future Hall of Famer.

During Barkley's 2018 rookie season, it appeared that Gettleman may have been right. Appearing in all 16 games for Big Blue, he racked up 261 carries for 1 307 yards and 11 touchdowns and added 91 receptions for 721 yards and four touchdowns with his hands en route to several team and NFL rookie records.

Most of those numbers are still career-highs and helped him earn numerous Rookie of the Year accolades and a 2018 Pro Bowl spot.

Where things became dicey for Barkley’s tenure in New York was Week 2 of the 2020 season in Chicago, when the running back suffered an ACL tear early into the team’s 17-13 loss to the Bears and was placed onto injury reserve for the remainder of the year.

After posting consecutive 1,000-yard efforts and looking to be the Giants’ star bull for the future, it was suddenly onto a grueling rehab that left an uneasy air around the franchise as to whether he would return as the same caliber player.

To compound the organization’s concern, Barkley would return at the start of the 2021 season with fresh legs and a renewed resolve to resurrect his career. That would last just five weeks before the ball carrier suffered an ankle injury in Week 5 that landed him on the sidelines again and limited his outing to a second-lowest 162 carries for 531 yards and two touchdowns stat line.

The Giants still elected to pick up his fifth-year option before 2022, notching the player another $7.217 million for what would ultimately become his comeback campaign.

With the arrival of head coach Brian Daboll and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka this fall, Barkley rebounded to his first 1,000-yard rushing season since 2019 and helped power the Giants offense to their unexpected 7-2 start and first postseason berth in the last six seasons.

He now desires to return to the organization for the continued future of his career. Still, it will take both parties to agree on the annual value this offseason for the beloved star to remain one of the key faces of what the Giants are building.

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GIANTS UFA PRIMERS: QB Daniel Jones | IOL Nick Gates

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2022 Recap

If anyone had doubts before the 2022 season as to whether the Giants should bring back Barkley on a new deal, the running back presented a very good statistical case to put all of them to rest.

Playing a fully healthy campaign for just the second time in his career, Barkley compiled an astounding 295 carries for 1,312 yards (4.4 average) and ten touchdowns, the former two numbers finishing as professional highs for the ball carrier.

In addition, he caught 56 receptions on 76 targets for 338 yards and an average of 5.9 yards per catch to stand fourth-best on the Giants’ leaderboard and help them play more dynamically in the passing attack.

Barkley’s record outing placed him within the top four running backs in the NFL in attempts and yardage and within the top 25 players in touchdowns and average yards per rush at the end of the season. His impact came beyond the big picture as he gave the Giants numerous games with at least 100 yards rushing, including two with over 30 carries and 145 yards on the ground.

Starting with the Giants' season opener in Nashville against the Tennessee Titans, Barkley thrashed the defense on 18 carries to the tune of 164 yards (season-high 9.1 average) and a touchdown. Adding another 30 yards with his hands, he helped New York capture their 1-0 start with a bullish 2-point conversion run on a shovel pass in the fourth quarter to secure the 21-20 victory.

Barkley crossed the century mark three more times in the team’s first nine games. He hunted down the Chicago Bears to 31 carries for 146 yards and a 4.7 average rush in a 20-12 Week 4 win. Then, in Week 11, he churned 24 rushes for 110 yards against the Jaguars before following up with a season-high 35 rushes for 152 yards and a touchdown in a 23-17 win over Houston.

Barkley made his “pay me” moment on his first postseason stage in the Wild Card round, tallying nine carries for 53 yards and two touchdowns, and five receptions for 56 yards and an 11.2 catch average to lead the Giants towards knocking off the Minnesota Vikings 31-24. It was the icing on the cake to his comeback journey, one that will have New York thinking hard about wanting to offer their stud rusher in the coming weeks.

Why the Giants Should Keep Him

By returning this past fall and having the best season of his five-year NFL tenure, Saquon Barkley showed the New York Giants that he still has plenty of gas left in the tank to be their lead rusher.

Statistics aside, the Giants first need to evaluate Barkley’s absence in terms of the production reached by the rest of their offensive skill players. Without his efforts, the team would only have had one rusher push past 300 yards on the season: Daniel Jones, who followed Barkley with 120 attempts for 708 yards and seven touchdowns. On the receiving end, Big Blue would have barely scraped the 3,000-yard mark and not seen as strong of an increase to their year-end rankings.

Neither would the playmaking abilities of the Giants offense be the same without him. While there were signs late in the season of Barkley running with less of a burst than we saw leave opponents in the dust during his rookie season, he still flashed several runs that engaged in foot races of 30-40 yards and challenged the defense into the endzone.

There’s also so much Barkley offers to the scheme itself, as he contributed out wide and in the wildcat offense at certain points, and it was deemed fruitful for the offensive success.

Away from the field, Barkley has grown into and flourished in his role as one of the faces of the Giants franchise. Through the character displayed in his societal endeavors to the mentorship he provides his teammates in the running backs room, it’s hard to let a presence who understands the culture and expectations of the organization go somewhere else when his desire remains to be a Giant for life.

There might be another player of the ilk on the market for the team to pursue this offseason as they fortify certain positions, but there's no guarantee they will stick in the New York market.

Why the Giants Shouldn’t Keep Him

When it comes to the New York Giants electing not to resign Saquon Barkley to a new deal, the two major factors are contract value and the omnipresent issue of durability at the running back position.

As it stands, the Giants and Barkley’s camp last negotiated a potential contract during the team’s bye week in November, but no agreement could be reached on the average annual value. Per a recent report from SNY, New York offered him $12 million per year in the first exchange, a number the player rejected despite mentioning this past week that he doesn’t intend to “reset” the free agent running back market.

Due to factors like the rise of media rights deals and league revenue, the NFL has seen consistent growth in the salary cap, and with it, the market for such a free agent has reached as high as $16 million APY. That level of a deal is currently held by San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey, another player with injuries to his professional resume.

Barkley knows the ailments put a dent in his ability to secure a record-breaking payday, but it appears he’s still looking for something slightly below that range to stay in East Rutherford.

According to Over the Cap, the Giants have an estimated $44.9 million ($41.773 million functional) in cap space to work on new contracts for their unrestricted free agents. That number doesn’t include any extra bumps that may come from future roster transactions this summer.

It’s expected that a large sum of the currently available funds will go towards a new deal for quarterback Daniel Jones, with at least $32 million at the lower bar, given the value of the franchise tag.

The organization may deploy that tag on Barkley to retain his rights for at least another season while negotiations loom large. However, there’s no guarantee he will accept it, and the optics after his strong outing could be troublesome to finishing a successful agreement.

If New York doesn’t figure out a way to keep their star rusher under a presumed $14 million a year preference, it will be difficult to see both he and Jones retained for the 2023 season.

Either way, it’s almost textbook for any NFL franchise to be worried about dishing huge amounts of money out to free-agent running backs, especially those on the back end of significant injuries like Barkley’s.

For the last decade or so, there have been numerous examples of ball carriers nearing the latter side of their 20s and earning substantial three to four-year deals only to have them never pan out.

In 2018, the Los Angeles Rams signed Todd Gurley to a four-year, $57.5 million contract, including $14 million per season and $45 million guaranteed earnings. The 23-year-old opened the deal rushing for 1,250 yards and 17 touchdowns to become one of the league’s top rushers.

The following season, his stats dropped to 857 yards and 12 scores amid knee injuries, and in 2020 Gurley was released after just two seasons of solid to decent production.

Another example of the demise that is handing big contracts to running backs was Le’Veon Bell with the New York Jets. The former Steeler, 27 at the time, signed a four-year, $52.5 million deal in 2019, including $13 million annually and $27 million guaranteed.

His tenure with the Jets was anything but impressive amid rust from lack of playing time, and he ended with 789 yards and three touchdowns before his eventual release the following year.

Barkley has been far more productive over the life of his rookie deal, but no guarantee will sustain itself on the back end of a new contract as the ball carrier heads closer for the wrong side of age 30. That makes the franchise tag so tempting for the Giants as they watch how Barkley remains available in the second full year removed from his ACL and ankle injuries.

The 25-year-old placed a big bet on himself that he could still produce at a high level for the franchise through the remainder of his prime years. It worked for Barkley, and now it will involve paying the piper something substantial to keep the partnership in a Giants uniform for years to come.

Keep or Dump?

Sure, it will be difficult for the New York Giants to stretch the financials to all of their needs this offseason if they dump a large chunk of their cap space into shiny new contracts for Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley. Yet, it feels like the pros slightly outweigh the cons in this scenario, and it would be the right move to resign the running back if the two parties can reach an amicable number.

Barkley’s value to the organization transcends the statistics he leaves on the field every Sunday. He adds a stable talent to the roster on whom Jones can rely to take over a game at any moment with his flashy playmaking abilities and who serves as a strong resource in the locker room.

Above all, he understands the expectations for playing in the Big Apple, embraces them, and wants to be the guy who helps deliver another title to the Big Blue faithful for his legacy.

As much as it was the defenses that helped the Giants win their recent Super Bowl titles in 2007 and 2011, those championship teams also had solid rushers to boost their efforts and make some of the defining plays that have since become forever etched in the history books.

Barkley has already made many such plays in his first five years in New York, and he’s only a well-structured handshake away from making more of them alongside the other pieces the Giants hope to add around him.

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