Giants backup QB Davis Webb on Saquon Barkley: ‘He’s a freak’

Davis Webb knew that Saquon Barkley was special as soon as he saw him eat breakfast.

“He’s a freak,” Webb, the Giants second-year backup quarterback, said Tuesday afternoon at the Big Daddy Youth Football Camp at New Hyde Park High School. “He’s a heck of an athlete. The one thing about Saquon — and I’ve only known him for a few months now — is that he’s very nutritious. You can see in the way he eats breakfast. He’s one of the first ones in there.”

Webb said that Barkley, a running back whom the Giants selected second overall in April’s NFL Draft, picked up the offense quickly in minicamp, something that can be a bit of a struggle for young players.

“That’s very hard for a rookie to do,” Webb said. “I remember last year, Evan [Engram], Wayne Gallman and I spent a lot of time together and our heads were spinning. It was a different offense, a little more West Coast . . . But Saquon has done a very good job picking [this system] up. He’s playing very, very fast. It’s fun to watch him catch a football because he looks like a receiver, but he’s built like a running back that can run the ball a lot of times in a game.”

Barkley is another playmaker in an offense that features Odell Beckham Jr, perhaps the most dynamic playmaker in the game. Whether the two will be on the field when training camp begins next month is a lingering question.

Beckham, who has not spoken to assembled media since Oct. 4 2017, told reporters earlier this month that he does not intend to hold out. He is entering the final season of his rookie deal and is due to earn about $8.45 million for 2018.

Although Webb declined to comment on the contract situation of his teammate, he did speak to how close the two are off the field.

“He’s one of my favorite teammates,” Webb said. “He’s one of my really good friends on the team. We eat a lot of dinners together and hang out a lot. I would enjoy doing that for a long period of time. But he’s a heck of a player. He’s the best receiver in the NFL.”

Webb added that the public perception of Beckham is completely different from how he is as a teammate.

“If you’re around Odell, your perception changes totally,” Webb said. “He’s a very intellectual human being. He’s easy to talk to. You can talk to him about everything from music, to food, to E! News. It doesn’t matter. He’s always having a lot of fun, always dancing, and singing. But the one thing about him is he’s the hardest-working receiver on our team . . . He loves catching the football, loves scoring touchdowns, and he’s going to do a lot of that this fall.”