As Saquon Barkley continues to display the All-Pro-caliber form he did during the late 2010s, the Giants are quickly warming up to the prospect of keeping him around beyond his rookie contract.
A franchise tag presents a complicated situation, with Daniel Jones also having played better under Brian Daboll than he did for most of his first three seasons. The Giants will be able to keep either Jones or Barkley off the 2023 market with the tag. A Barkley tag would come in around $12MM, which would be a far easier price to stomach compared to a quarterback franchise or transition tag. But the team might be eyeing a Barkley extension and Jones tag.
The Giants are not afraid to pay top-market money to keep Barkley, according to Fox Sports’ Ralph Vacchiano. While injuries stonewalled Barkley’s path in recent years, Vacchiano adds the Giants believe he is over those issues. The running back position brings considerable risk from health and wear-and-tear perspectives, making Barkley, 25, a riskier investment. But he has continued to deliver in what has become a monster contract year.
The former No. 2 overall pick leads the NFL with 931 rushing yards. He is coming off an old-school, 35-carry outing against the Texans. For a Giants team that has seen its receiver situation — largely through its own mistakes — crater to the point a player (Darius Slayton) the team tried for months to trade has re-emerged as Jones’ top target, Barkley has been a vital component of this surprising 7-2 start. Contract talks took place during New York’s bye week, but Vacchiano indicates these were not expected to produce a deal. The bye week instead doubled as a window to gauge what Barkley’s camp was seeking on a long-term accord.
Considering Barkley’s renewed health, value to the team and the salary cap set to come in well north of where it was the last time the running back market’s ceiling moved (2020), it should be expected the Giants will need to match or top Christian McCaffrey‘s $16MM-per-year price. With the Giants being open to trading Barkley this past offseason, the team being prepared to reach this price range to keep him represents quite the turnaround.
Following Big Blue’s Week 10 win, Barkley said he wanted to be a “Giant for life” (Twitter link via SNY). This differs from how Barkley addressed his impending free agency in September. While it could have been in his best interests to take a high-end deal now, the dynamic back’s bet on himself has been beneficial so far. This situation is pointing to Barkley being either tagged or extended come 2023. Barkley’s goal of a top-market pact, however, may require him to avoid another significant injury over the Giants’ final eight games.
Yes. Pay the man his money. He Carrie’s the offense
Ya the blood scene
Let Jones walk. He isn’t a franchise QB.
Big mistake.
How much guaranteed money we talking?
I can speak to this because we had a premium RB too. You will regret paying him top dollar. He’s more injury prone than Zeke but both had a lot of miles already at the same time as Saquon does now. Now as a Cowboys fan, I hope they extend Saquon and Jones.
Saquon deserves to be the highest paid RB in the history NFL. The Giants need to pony up the money and extend this guy. It’s a no brainer.
They also need to sign OBJ for 3-years (20m per year). Make it happen.
And as mentioned above, sign Jones to an extension as well. He hasn’t reached his peak yet. Idk I just see a bit of Joe Montana in him.
Jones fumbled 14 times through his first 9 games while Montana fumbled just 19 times during his 215 game career. Might want to get those eyes checked.
I said joe montaña
Yea I added the last portion (about Jones), to make sure people were aware this was a joke. I guess it didn’t click.
Found the weekend crack smoker.
The post was meant to be serious.
correction “wasn’t meant to be serious”.
There’s this thing called the salary cap
The only people who want Beckham back on the Giants are the White Male Sports Media. Giants have been playing great now that they’re rid of the Boat Trip clique.
Didn’t really know where to write this so maybe I’ll copy and paste it a couple times but here goes:
The NFL, A trillion dollar business has the worst officiating in the history of sports. Not only the worst officiating, But the stupidest rules I’ve ever seen.
The WR’s can pick play the DB’s but the DB’s can’t lay a hand on the WR’s.
The 5 yard rule is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. Pretty much any play in the NFL this year you can see somebody get hit, Not that I blame the defenders but what else can they do?
The illegal hands to the face rule only gets called on the defense. A RB can throw a stiff arm into the defender and knock his head off but it’s a one way street.
The PI rule is a joke. Now I admit, Most of you know me as a Bears fan so you might say it’s sour grapes. And maybe so. But I’ve seen it all through the League. Eddie Jackson makes a great play and turns around and plays the ball the way he’s supposed to and gets a flag and Chase Claypool gets mugged by 2 guys, Neither of which was turned around by the way and no flag.
I just heard the Bills had 12 guys on the field for a play, IN OVERTIME NO LESS, And nobody noticed. Really? They can’t even count anymore.
I’d say it can’t get any worse, But I know better. Goodell doesn’t just owe the Bears an apology, He owes every fan in the league an apology for the lame way they train and supervise their officials. Plus the Rules committee needs to be terminated immediately because nobody knows how to write a rule much less teach somebody to officiate it.If they make it any harder to play defense, They might as well just let the offense start on the other teams 1 yard line and stop the pretense.
Look the Bears traded their 3 best defensive players and I’m not expecting them to put up shutouts, But the last 2 games have been officiated so poorly, The 85 Bears would of lost with those rules and those officials. Goodell, You S**k. But then you always have.
You don’t have to be a Bears fan to notice how bad the game officials have become. It’s pretty clear that Goodell has an agenda and a preference for which teams win and reach the playoffs. The lengths that the officials will go to in order to comply with Goodell’s agenda is almost comical.
That Bills Vikings game might be one of the worst officiated games I’ve ever seen. Beyond the missed 12 men call, the failure to review the obvious non-catch in the last 2 minutes, but the most egregious thing to me was the Bills secondary couldn’t guard anybody all day without holding or interference and the braindead commentators kept saying “the refs are letting them play” as if it was a good thing. I’m normally not one to blame officials but nobody wants to see pass interference or holding the receiver stop a big play, we either want a great catch or great defense, not illegal defense stopping a big play. I can’t believe I’m saying this but they need to bring back Pass interference reviews because the officials just aren’t capable of calling it right consistently.
I remember when John Madden worked with Pat Summerall he would frequently complain about the inconsistency of pass interference calls. Apparently improving the quality of officiating is low on the leagues priority list.
I hope so. But with Commissioner Lame at the helm, I’m not expecting anything. And I’ll probably get it. The only thing that will make it change is when fans get fed up enough they stop going and buying merchandise. For a few years now the league has been losing good officials and had no plan to replace them. The Referees they have now a farce.
One way that could improve the officiating is to add “an eye in the sky.” Add a ref stationed on the middle deck of most stadiums, above the action to see what TV cameras (and fan in the house) see — as opposed to the refs, who have to watch by seeing around players bigger than they are.
There is a problem in a sport when the ref’s get a worse view than crowds or TV audiences.
They already review many calls via replay angles but aside from slowing the game down it hasn’t solved anything. It’s also impossible to review calls that weren’t made but should have been.
If Barkley is going to be the highest paid RB, then it won’t be long till Taylor breaks the bank because he does play for an owner who’s kinda looney
Tag Barkley, draft a new QB. Unless Jones will sign a middle of the road QB contract. It’s that simple.
Barkley is the right candidate to franchise. Go year-to-year with this talented but fragile star. Don’t be like Gettleman and give up all your cap room to “reward” a player you like personally.
A four year deal with Saquon will result in years of declining production, time on the IR and dead money on the cap.