Giants RB Saquon Barkley Does It All In Giants Win Over Bears

Running back, receiver, quarterback--no matter what was asked of Saquon Barkley, he brought it in the Giants 20-12 win over the Chicago Bears.

New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley proved that no task was too big for him to handle in the team's Week 4 20-12 win against the Chicago Bears.  

Barkley was the league leader in total scrimmage yards entering Week 4 and was called up to run the ball a lot against the NFL's 30th-ranked run defense, and that is exactly what he did. Barkley had a career high 31 carries in Week 4, totaling 146 yards on the ground while averaging 4.7 yards per carry. 

It's fair to say he did it all for the Giants offense this week, as there were only 16 passing attempts, with nine completions total. Two of those completions were to Barkley, one of which was a spectacular Houdini-type escape to evade a Bears defender deep in the backfield and turn it into a big gain, aided by a huge block by quarterback Daniel Jones against Bears safety Jaquan Brisker.

Barkley just took his performance in stride. 

“Just let your body react. Ball security was awful in the beginning, but I wanted to make sure we get back on track," he said. "It was a heck of a block by (Daniel Jones)--there are not a lot of quarterbacks out there that will go out there and fight for his team, coming back in and making those blocks. O-line kept blocking, too; we picked up the first down.”

Speaking of Jones’ legs, his ankle got rolled up underneath a Bears defender in the third quarter, and he was taken out of the game briefly after a very noticeable limp. 

Once Jones was out, in came veteran quarterback Tyrod Taylor. Taylor made a few nice rushes himself, totaling 30 yards on three carries, including a spin move to gain a first down. Unfortunately, on his last carry, Taylor took a hard hit to the head from Bears rookie cornerback Kyler Gordon and immediately left the game, later revealed to have suffered a concussion.

What happened next? A rarity: the emergency quarterback. With Jones barely able to run and Taylor in the medical tent, Barkley stepped up to the task and took over as quarterback with Jones, who had the radio in his helmet, lining up wide as a decoy. 

Eventually, Jones would be put back under center, but Barkley was told to run out of the wildcat formation and continue orchestrating the ground game.

“When I saw (quarterback) Tyrod (Taylor) go down, I kind of realized I’m up next. I’m the quarterback," Barkley said. "First of all, you have to give credit to DJ coming back in the game--he’s a tough you-know-what. 

"I think I just tried my best to read it. It’s not that hard, I guess, but I think I made the right reads on them. But we were able to keep the ball moving, get downfield, get some points, and the defense did a great job for us.”

How did Barkley like running the wildcat formation?

“It’s something that we practiced. I think we showed it against Carolina. It was a package that we had in. You don’t want to be in that situation, but the way the coaches reacted, brought us all in and started drawing it up. 

"It felt like you’re back again as a little kid in the backyard playing football. But like I said, we had some of those packages already. We worked at it, and we have some talented (running) backs and a great offensive line, and we were able to have a little bit of success on it.”

The Giants must be very pleased with how Barkley has looked thus far. Through four weeks, he has 570 total scrimmage yards and two touchdowns. While the rest of the offense is still figuring things out, seeing how much confidence Barkley has in himself again is refreshing not only for fans but for himself.

 The Giants next opponent will be the Green Bay Packers in London. The Packers allowed 5.1 yards per carry and 167 rushing yards in their Week 4 victory against the Patriots, which is potentially good news for Barkley, who will look to continue his early season dominance and hopefully lead the Giants to another win.

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