Saquon Barkley's mindset this season with the Giants: 'Be the best version of myself'
After practices at training camp, some of the Giants get together and play a game similar to hot potato with a football to work on their hand-eye coordination and reflexes. They bat the ball to each other and see who can be the last one standing without a drop or a mishit.
Saquon Barkley joined them after Friday’s practice. He didn’t win, and didn’t even know the name of the game or what the rules are.
“It looked fun,’’ he said, “so I just kind of joined.”
None of that, though, stopped him from making a rather bold proclamation regarding the activity.
“I would say,” he bragged, “that I’m the best at it.”
The same, he and the Giants hope, can be said about his performance on the field this season.
Barkley said that while he would like to win a rushing title this year, which would be the first of his career, he does not use that as a way to check himself against the other running backs in the league.
Even when they go head-to-head in games, as he and Derrick Henry will in Week 1 when the Giants face the Titans, Barkley won’t be trying to outgain or outdo anyone.
“I kind of had that mindset in high school and college,” he said of comparing stats with other running backs, “but then I realized there’s nothing I can do to control what he does.”
That doesn’t mean Barkley doesn’t want to be the best . . . at everything.
“Obviously, at the end of the year, everybody wants a crown, everybody wants the rushing title if you play the running back position,” he said.
He just doesn’t use yards to come to that conclusion.
“I already know I’m going to be in a game with Derrick Henry over there, with [Colts running back] Jonathan Taylor who is over there on the side, [Panthers running back] Christian McCaffrey’s on the other side, [Packers running back] Aaron Jones is on the other side,” Barkley said. “You know, you have so much more respect for those backs. You take it personal, yeah you do, but I can’t control anything that they do.
“So my mindset is just to go out there and be the best version of myself and be the best that I can be. At the end of the day, hopefully, the only thing that really matters is your team winning. So that’s what we want to accomplish in that environment.”
That competitive drive has always simmered in Barkley, even when injuries and losing have kept it below the surface.
This summer, though, as he prepares for his second season after ACL surgery and the last on his rookie contract, he is letting it all bubble forth. That includes everything from shooting back at critics to dropping F-bombs on podcasts, both of which he has done in the past week.
“I guess just my mindset is different,” he said of allowing the world to see that side of him. “I just have a different mentality. Being out a couple of games the last two years, probably being fed up — not even with like the outside noise, but just even with having to sit out games and rehab and all that, all the bad stuff — I guess I’m kind of just fed up with that.
“That just takes me to a place where right now. I’m just happy, enjoying life, enjoying the game I love, and I just want to go out there and have fun.”
And even if he isn’t objectively or subjectively the best, as is the case with hot potato, well, he can always just say he is.
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