With contract negotiations falling apart between the New York Giants and their star running back Saquon Barkley, the question and concern is, will Saquon sit out this season? He could take on the franchise tag of $10.1 million dollars for this season and play his way to revisiting contract negotiations next summer.
With Saquon being 26 years old, I understand him wanting a big contract and as much guaranteed money as possible. From Saquon’s perspective, with his age and the average running back tailing off at age 30, can you blame man for wanting his money?
Saquon has watched Ezekiel Elliott and Dalvin Cook be released from their teams, he’s realizing the time is now to get his money and as much of it as possible. It’s a hard sell to many fans right now after the Giants had a really good season last year.
The Giants made the playoffs, beat the Minnesota Vikings and there’s excitement for what’s to come this coming season. The Giants re-signed starting quarterback Daniel Jones and they traded for tight end Darren Waller as another offense weapon that Jones can throw to.
Saquon feels his worth is higher than what the Giants are offering him. He was 60% of the Giants offense last season so I can justify him wanting his money but at what point do we have to look at the bigger picture and his shows up for training camp?
There’s also the angle of Saquon having lost a season a few years back due to a bad ankle injury. His history of injuries are concerning but last season he ran for 1,312 yards, 10 touchdowns and averaged 4.4 yards per carry.
For there to be a meeting among running backs in the NFL from Nick Chubb to Derrick Henry, Christian McCaffrey and Austin Ekeler with Saquon Barkley being involved, they have all expressed concern about their role in the league and being compensated for their worth. This is something that hasn’t happened before and the shift in the league has become a pass game of quarterbacks throwing for over 4,000 yards.
The past few years of SuperBowl winners, team have:
- Not paid their running backs a large contract.
- No running backs that have rushed for over 1,000 yards.
A lot of teams can’t justify paying their top running backs large contracts when the league has become dominantly passing. When you have Davante Adams, DeAndre Hopkins, Jalen Waddle, Justin Jefferson, JaMarr Chase, Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs and so many other dominant wide receivers and with quarterbacks in Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow all capable of throwing for over 4,000 yards, what’s the justification of teams paying their running backs?
At the end of the day, this will become a game of chess between the Giants and Saquon Barkley and the question becomes, who will say checkmate first?
