Career-making year awaits Giants' Saquon Barkley
Giants running back Saquon Barkley runs with the ball during training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, N.J., on Thursday. Credit: Brad Penner
Saquon Barkley was chatting with reporters about how his training camp has been going, how he is excited to have fans back at the practices and how he feels healthy. Then he casually mentioned this being his fifth time going through this preseason rigmarole.
That seemed to stop him in his tracks more than any defender ever has.
“It’s flying by,” he said, eyebrows raised.
For many of the top running backs in the NFL, five seasons is half a career, maybe even more. Barkley is still only 25 years old, and yet there is a possibility that not only is his best football behind him but potentially most of his football itself lies there in history books and statistical databases as well.
A sobering thought.
For both Barkley and for the Giants.
Not only have injuries shortened Barkley’s highlight reel from feature length to a short film, they’ve also stymied his earning power. He’s still on his rookie contract, playing on the final year of the deal, waiting to see when he gets a second payday. And from whom.
It’s why that Year Five realization — not that it arrived in a thunderbolt on Thursday but rather as something that has been simmering toward reality — made Barkley not just reflective on the past but the future as well. He’s said he wants to stay with the Giants, but that may not even be his choice to make.
“Obviously that stuff is in the air,” he said of his contract status. “My thing is just, and I keep saying it, if I take care of the little things and God blesses me and nothing crazy happens, I think the rest will take care of itself. I know where I am at mentally, I know where I am at physically. I know what I am capable of doing. I just have to focus on taking care of my mind, try to be the best teammate I can be every single day, and when the time comes it’s going to pay off.”
All signs point to this being a big year for Barkley. He is finally healthy after spending the better part of his last three years rehabbing ankle sprains and a torn ACL. He is in an offense that can exploit his playmaking abilities from the backfield as well as other places on the field. He has what appears to be the best offensive line he’s ever had in front of him during his time with the Giants.
The rest is up to him.
“I just want to show the Giants the guy that they drafted is still here,” Barkley said.
If he can do that, Year Five may rival or even surpass Year One when he was the league’s Offensive Rookie of the Year and seemed poised to become the biggest star in the Giants’ universe for the next decade.
If he can’t, then a half decade may be all that we get from Barkley.
Notes & quotes: DL Leonard Williams had a new practice jersey on Thursday after the one he wore Wednesday was ripped off his chest by an offensive lineman during drills. “Competition was the culprit,” Williams said, unsure which player had grabbed him to create the gaping hole. “It’s kind of funny … I was joking to the offensive line like, ‘Yeah, you guys have to do all of this to stop me!’ But it’s friendly competition” … Rookie WR Wan’Dale Robinson caught a sideline pass and was hit hard in the midsection by CB Aaron Robinson, leaving the receiver on the ground for a moment. Wan’Dale Robinson was eventually able to get up and walk off some back spasms that resulted from the thump. He did not return to practice but said he expects to be at full capacity on Friday … The Giants waived LB Justin Hilliard and signed LB Auston Calitro.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
