Joe Schoen’s Saquon Barkley gamble comes with serious Giants risks
Whomever you side or sided with in the Joe Schoen-versus-Saquon Barkley roadblock, this is the depressing reality:
The Giants are a lesser team, and a lesser organization, with the face of their franchise feeling disrespected enough to walk away for the summer, his future as a Giant suddenly a mist.
AWAYQUON Barkley.
It wasn’t that Schoen, the GM, and sidekick head coach Brian Daboll, did not understand how valuable Barkley was to the Giants’ 2022 renaissance, and will eventually be to the 2023 Giants once he signs his $10.1M franchise tag before Week 1 against the Cowboys, because it would be career suicide for him to go the Le’Veon Bell route and sit out the season.
Schoen, however, had a drop-dead price in his mind that precluded him from viewing the running back as invaluable to his long-term vision of team building.
Saquon Barkley is not part of that long-term vision.
I get that in Joe Schoen the Giants have a fearless general manager who is not afraid to make the tough, cutthroat decisions. That will be comforting to a segment of Giants fans.
I get that it’s a risk paying the running back.
Except that Barkley is absolutely right when he views himself as more of a weapon than a running back.
To me, the risk of not reaching a long-term deal with Saquon Barkley is not worth the reward.
The Giants’ final offer of between $11 million and $11.5 million per year with a guarantee between $22 million and $23 million came within $1 million to $2 million on both ends, sources told The Post’s Ryan Dunleavy.
It is a shame that became a bridge too far.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that the season is lost, no. And Barkley is too prideful not to keep himself in Spartan shape and then chase his Hall of Fame dream come September.
But it is a sobering thought for all the Giants fans who flood MetLife Stadium in their 26 jerseys that he might have to chase it somewhere else as early as 2024.
In the meantime, at the very least, a cloud hangs over the 2023 Giants season … and, of course, beyond.
This is a lose-lose proposition.
Barkley is the straw that stirs the drink as the Giants attempt to close that gap with the Eagles — and Cowboys.
The drink is diluted without him on the field and all-in as a New York Football Giant in every possible way.
Daniel Jones is a lesser quarterback without him.
The sunshine culture that Daboll established last season is partially clouded without him. Daboll and Giants players who love and respect Barkley, one of the 10 captains last season, will now be answering questions about him, and what it might mean. Matt Breida and rookie Eric Gray are Next Men Up until further notice.
It sends the worst possible message about a gladiator who does everything right, everything first class, everything the way a Giant is supposed to do it.
For a player like this, for a person like this, dollars and sense should not have had to trump common sense when there is a long-term deal to be made.
Barkley learned a hard, cruel lesson: In this NFL, the quarterback ($40M Man Jones) will get paid; the defensive tackle ($22.5M Man Dexter Lawrence) will get paid. The left tackle, Andrew Thomas, will eventually get paid.
The running back does not get paid.
The moral of this story for Saquon Barkley: Don’t let little Saquon Barkley Jr. grow up to be a running back.
Everyone acknowledges the cratering financial nature of the position — see Josh Jacobs, see Dalvin Cook, thank you, Todd Gurley — but remember, Barkley is still only 26.
“He’s the best running back in the league,” Jones said immediately after the season ended.
Barkley knew from the start that he had no shot at nearing Christian McCaffrey’s top-of-the-market $16M. But he had every right to want to run in the same neighborhood as Derrick Henry ($12.5 million average annual value) and Nick Chubb ($12.2 million).
Schoen had his price, and a majority of general managers would probably agree with that price. And in this running back landscape, I understand it. But that doesn’t mean that, in this case, I have to like it, or agree with it. There are exceptions to rules, and Barkley is exceptional, on the field and off it.
Barkley is gambling and left the money on the table. As much as he has craved being a Giant For Life, that tells you all you need to know about his abject disappointment.
“It is what it is,” Barkley tweeted six minutes before the 4 p.m. deadline would pass.
It didn’t have to be. Once A Giant, Always A Giant is suddenly a pipe dream for Saquon Barkley. What a shame.
