Giants RB Saquon Barkley Takes Significant Step Forward in Comeback

Barkley's workload continues to increase with each passing day and that's very good news for the Giants, who hope he'll be ready for Week 1.

Dennis Schneidler-USA TODAY Sports

There's still no timetable regarding when New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley will receive the green light to participate in practices and games without any restrictions. Still, based on Tuesday's practice, the fourth-year running back took a significant step forward toward that goal.

Wearing a red non-contact jersey reserved for quarterbacks and kickers, Barkley participated in some seven-on-seven drills during the team's practice Tuesday, a significant step forward for the 24-year-old running back activated off the PUP list last week.

The Giants have been very cautious with Barkley, making sure not to rush him back before he's fully ready and certainly not before the medical staff is convinced his surgically repaired ACL is capable of holding up to the rigors of the NFL gridiron.

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Head coach Joe Judge told reporters before practice that the plan for the coming week when the Giants visit the Cleveland Browns for joint practices was to hold Barkley out of any live drills.

"I wouldn’t plan on putting him in 11-on-11 at this point," Judge said. "We’ll see if there’s something else we can slide him into drill-wise."

Judge declined to go into the specifics of Barkley's medical progress, but he did say that he's "happy" with how the running back has been working and the progress he's made.

"We’re going to go ahead and keep progressing him, do a few more things," Judge said before practice. "At this point, until the doctors give me the green light, I’m not going to throw him into any live contact drills or anything of that nature. We want to be careful as we go through it, but we just have to keep on pushing his body."

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Barkley's NFL career hasn't quite gone the way he or the Giants hoped, thanks to back-to-back years with lower-body injuries that have cost him 17 games over that period.

After posting an impressive Offensive Rookie of the Year campaign n 2018 in which he rushed for 1,307 yards on 261 carries with 11 touchdowns and racked up an impressive 2,028 yards from scrimmage, Barkley missed three games in 2019 with a high ankle sprain (though he did manage to top 1,000 yards rushing--just barely).

Then came last season's devastating ACL injury in which Barkley also damaged his meniscus and required reparative surgery, a sequence of events that has put any plans to extend the No. 2 overall pick in the 2018 draft on hold.

That said, general manager Dave Gettleman, who made little attempt to hide his wanting of Barkley leading up to the 2018 draft, said if he had to do things all over again, he'd make the same decision regarding drafting Barkley where he did.

"Absolutely. Stuff happens, not everything's perfect, and there are guys all over this league who get hurt, big-time players," Gettleman said. "He's done a great job, and I feel the same way about him.

"Really and truly, you can talk about injuries at any position. I would not make a different decision than I made in 2018, plain and simple."

Team president John Mara, who will be among those who will sign off on a new deal for Barkley, said a new contract all comes down to the running back being able to produce at a high level

"Our medical people feel very good about where he's at right now," Mara said. "I like what I've seen from him out on the field and hopefully that'll be an easy decision for us as well."

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