The New York Giants made Saquon Barkley one of the faces of their franchise when they selected him with the second overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, but the running back felt disrespected by those who didn’t do everything they could to keep him in that role when he became a free agent after six years.
“I felt like it was a little disrespectful, to be honest,” he said in a conversation with Dianna Russini of The Athletic, published Tuesday (11:20 p.m. ET), in which he discussed New York asking him to go out and get offers and then come back to see if it would be a fit. “It’s kind of like a slap in the face.”
Barkley eventually signed with the division rival Philadelphia Eagles.
The running back’s future with the team was a major talking point ahead of the 2023 campaign when the Giants decided to reward quarterback Daniel Jones with a long-term contract and place the franchise tag on Barkley to prevent him from hitting the open market.
The Penn State product ultimately did not sign the contract, and the two sides agreed to a one-year deal to avoid a lengthy waiting period.
He finished this year with 962 yards and six touchdowns on the ground, along with 41 receptions for 280 yards and four touchdowns as a receiver. His 3.9 yards per carry is down from the 4.4 he posted as a Pro Bowler in 2022, and he also failed to eclipse his career-high of 1,312 rushing yards from the previous season.
Perhaps the Giants were concerned about the 27-year-old’s declining production, and a conversation between Barkley and general manager Joe Schoen that was revealed on the HBO show Hard knocks clearly stated the team’s position.
“I think when you think about it, the best thing to do is let you test the market and see what your value is. I don’t want to go through the franchise thing again, or any of that, I don’t want to go through that again, we’ve both been there,” Schoen said. “If you really want to be a Giant for life and you’re interested in staying here and coming back, just see what your market is and get Ed to come back to us and we’ll see if we can work something out.”
From his perspective, Barkley told Russini that he knew his tenure in New York was over after that phone call, largely because “I never really believed in my heart that they were going to match that.”
“Either way, I probably wasn’t going to come back,” he continued. “I know my agent came back and talked to him and, like, we gave him the opportunity, like, okay, which we matched. But, like, the whole time, like, I had already, like, already opted out of that. Like, I had that conversation, and I was like, damn, like, this is gonna suck, like, this hurts. It was like, I wanted to do this and, like, that’s why it hurts. It hurts because, like, I’m the type of player, the type of person, like, I have a vision. It’s like, I want to be a part of New York and the success and be a part of this organization.
“And I’m glad I was. So it was like, oh my, okay, this is coming to an end. But at the end of the day, it was like, I wasn’t retiring, like my career wasn’t over, like I still had a lot of things to do. So it was like, okay, you put this chapter aside and you’re grateful for this chapter and then you move on.”
Philadelphia saw an opportunity to bolster its own offense and hurt the Giants in the process and ended up signing Barkley to a three-year, $37.75 million contract, which was no surprise for the veteran.
“And then when I got into the open market, I found out that what I thought was going to happen, or what I believed in myself, actually happened,” he told Russini.
“A lot of teams that were there were sending me real offers and wanted me to come play for the team. So that was good for me because I was like, ‘OK, I feel like the Giants thought I was going to play nine, maybe eight, maybe 10, and then I’ll come back to them and say, ‘OK, well, we got you if you want to come play nine, you can play nine,’ which I think would have really done the trick. I think that’s where they liked me, or at least that’s where Joe liked me.”
He also said the Giants weren’t even in his top three when he made his final decision after what was a stressful process.
“With me, you know, they could sit there and Joe, he made a comment, said it took 10 years off his life,” Barkley said. “If it took 10 years off your life, what do you think it did for me?”
He’s ready to move on at this point.
“But that’s in the past,” Barkley said. “I don’t really care because at the end of the day, I got tagged, I played for the $10 million, and then I ended up winning more money. That’s why you can’t, at the time, it seemed like a disaster. And I was like, oh, man, I have to do this, but actually, I got better. And I came out on top in that scenario.”
He also said, “All I asked for was the opportunity to make as much money as possible. And they gave me that so people could see if I was salty about this, this, that, and the third. When they told me they weren’t going to tag me, I was like, ‘You know what? That’s the only thing I’m asking for, because last year when they tagged me, I knew exactly how it was going to go.'”
“The conversations, the tone of the conversations changed. Like they had me. Because it was really like, ‘We can offer you anything you want and you either take it or you play on this one-year deal or you don’t show up and you miss out on $10 million.’ And no one in their right mind is going to just show up and take the money.”
Losing Barkley will be even more difficult for New York if he ends up thriving with the Eagles, which is a realistic possibility given that opposing defenses have to account for far more talented playmakers than when they stacked the box to stop him with the Giants.
Defenses will only be able to get so many players to the line of scrimmage with AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith on the outside and Jalen Hurts running the middle.
It’s the Super Bowl or nothing for Philadelphia this season, and Barkley should play a major role in that quest.