NEW YORK — There are a lot of NFL teams that could survive a player like Saquon Barkley holding out into the regular season, not playing and being disgruntled when he did return to the team.
But the Giants aren’t one of them.
The contract standoff makes sense from the team’s perspective for plenty of reasons:
Barkley plays running back. He already has an extensive injury history. Some of his fundamentals are either poor (pass blocking) or overrated (pass-catching) in critical areas.
All of that undermines his argument that he should be paid like one of the league’s two best backs, if not the top five.
But Barkley’s value to the 2023 Giants specifically is greater than it would be to a lot of other teams.
Despite his flaws, Barkley remains the best playmaker on a roster that has not sufficiently upgraded the offense around quarterback Daniel Jones yet.
Did you know that the Giants had a 6-1 record in Barkley’s seven best rushing games last season with him being their best player that day or one of their top three, not just running out the clock on a lead?
Did you know the biggest play of Brian Daboll’s Coach of the Year rookie regular season was the Giants’ game-winning, two-point conversion in Week 1 in Tennessee, and that Barkley’s incredible move and second effort was the only reason they converted a play the Titans defense blew up?
Did you know the London win over Green Bay — where Jones truly opened the organization’s eyes wide to his franchise QB potential — included Barkley gaining 81 yards on two plays to set up two touchdowns in a game the Giants won by seven?
Barkley had a 40-yard run on a direct snap to set up a second-quarter Giants TD. Then Barkley took a pass from Jones 41 yards in the fourth quarter to set up his game-winning, two-yard TD on a direct snap.
Jones played very well that day. He especially impressed the Giants by directing a 91-yard, game-tying TD drive from the third to fourth quarter without Barkley.
That’s interesting, though, isn’t it? The barometer for Jones’ improvement and strong play included being able to do something without Barkley.
In other words, how did he play when their best playmaker was out?
Barkley, 26, can and should stand on that in his argument not just about his value, but about his value to this specific Giants team:
What are they without him?
Not to mention, what impact would it have if one of their leaders and primary ticket-sellers lingered as publicly unhappy?
There is a flip side to that, too, though: the Giants don’t want their offense to look the way it’s always looked.
The obvious reason they needed to see Jones become their team’s best offensive player in a critical moment is that’s what the NFL’s best modern offenses look like. And Joe Schoen and Daboll just came from Buffalo, where QB Josh Allen’s ascension made the Bills’ offense one of the envies of the entire league.
Schoen and Daboll know what scoring 30 points a game looks like. They are trying to do that here in New York.
It’s not like the Giants don’t value Barkley, either.
Their multi-year offers in November and January between $12-12.5 million per season would have made him between the league’s third and sixth highest-paid running back by average annual salary. That is arguably more money than any team should pay a running back.
Barkley’s $10.09 million salary on the franchise tag, if he signs it, would put him in a three-way tie for eighth.
The Giants simply balked at paying Barkley at or anywhere close to Christian McCaffrey’s $16 million per year with San Francisco. And it’s hard to blame Schoen.
Barkley isn’t as good as McCaffrey. He just isn’t.
McCaffrey’s career 4.6 yards per carry are just slightly ahead of Barkley’s 4.5 yards per carry average. But McCaffrey has scored 60 touchdowns in 75 regular-season games, averaging 0.80 TDs per game, compared to Barkley’s 37 TDs in 60 games, a 0.61 TDs per game clip.
And most glaringly, Barkley is not as dynamic or consistent a receiver.
McCaffrey was 16th in running back catch percentage last season (78.7%), per ProFootballReference.com, and has caught 80.8% of his career targets. Barkley was 26th in RB catch percentage last season (75%) and is only at 73.5% for his career.
McCaffrey averages 5.9 catches and 50.1 receiving yards per game. Barkley averages 4.1 catches and 30.3 receiving yards.
In his 75 games, McCaffrey has 442 career catches for 3,756 receiving yards and 22 TDs. In 60 games, Barkley has 247 catches for 1,820 yards and eight TDs.
Being less productive than McCaffrey is nothing to be ashamed of.
If Barkley can accept that financial reality, though, it still would be reasonable for him to seek significant recognition and compensation after watching Daboll (Coach of the Year award) and Jones (four-year, $160 million extension) both get theirs.
Also consider that two consecutive franchise tags hypothetically would pay Barkley $22.1 million total for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. So if the Giants’ offers haven’t included much more than $11 million guaranteed per year, what are they really telling him?
Ezekiel Elliott, 27, being a free agent just four years after signing a six-year, $90 million contract extension with the Dallas Cowboys is a cautionary tale for the Giants. But it’s also reinforcement of why Barkley needs to make his money now.
The Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs spending a combined total of $4.386 million in 2022 salary cap space on their top four running backs in the Super Bowl is reinforcement of why an NFL offense ideally does not have to pay a running back.
But one of the reasons Philly’s Miles Sanders and Kenneth Gainwell and the Chiefs’ Isiah Pacheco and Jerick McKinnon were so effective was because their quarterbacks were Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes. Their offensive lines and elite skill groups didn’t hurt, either.
The Giants are not there yet as an offense or a team.
For the long-term, maximizing Barkley’s value in a trade could help turn the Giants offense over if this situation sours beyond repair.
Pacheco’s seventh-round selection last spring by Kansas City was the latest evidence that teams can replace production at running back with mid-to-late-round picks, too. So maybe Schoen could do the same thing in this draft if Barkley refuses to sign the tag.
He and the Giants have until July 17 at 4 p.m. to negotiate a long-term extension, or else he would have to play on a one-year deal, barring a trade elsewhere.
The Giants’ skill group is not strong enough as currently constituted to withstand Barkley’s absence, however.
So while Schoen’s stand against overpaying a running back is grounded in sound logic and data, Barkley is not just any other running back — not to them, anyway.
