The Giants didn’t agree to an extension with franchise-tagged running back Saquon Barkley by today’s deadline, meaning the two sides must table talks until 2024. While Barkley can effectively no longer force the Giants’ hand with threats of a holdout, he may do so anyway.
After hearing earlier today that the RB wouldn’t be reporting to training camp on time, Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post tweets his belief that Barkley could also sit out some regular season games. Dunleavy notes that he never thought this scenario was possible considering “winning, teammates and stats/legacy mean so much to” the player, but after conversations today, the writer is beginning to think a regular-season holdout could be a possibility.
Since Barkley has yet to ink his franchise tag, he wouldn’t be subject to fines for missing practices and/or games. Barkley’s true logic for sitting out games would be to preserve his miles before his one-year tag expires. Of course, players like Le’Veon Bell haven’t fared all that well when they followed a similar tactic, so it would be a significant risk for Barkley to give up the guaranteed money.
As The Athletic’s Dan Duggan writes, Barkley could also use the threat of a holdout to force the Giants into some concessions. Specifically, Duggan could say he’d only sign the franchise tag if the organization “includes a clause prohibiting the team from tagging him again next offseason.”
While a regular-season holdout is just conjecture at this point, it sounds pretty definitive that Barkley will miss some of training camp. ESPN’s Jordan Raanan writes that “there is no way” Barkley shows up for training camp and risks injury.
More notes out of New York…
- Barkley was seeking a contract that would pay him a similar average annual value as Derrick Henry ($12.5MM) and Nick Chubb ($12.2MM), and he wasn’t seeking a deal that approached the top-end of the market (like Christian McCaffrey‘s $16MM AAV or Alvin Kamara‘s $15MM AAV), per Pat Leonard of the New York Post. The writer seems to imply that the Giants may have been willing to give him those kind of numbers on paper, but the RB was ultimately seeking more guaranteed money.
- As Leonard notes in the same piece, the public leaks surrounding the negotiations may have also played a role in the two sides not agreeing to a deal. Barkley previously said he was frustrated with the “misleading” and “untruthful” reports, noting that the leaks “tried to make me look like I’m greedy.” “We say ‘family business is family business’ in that facility, … and then sources come out and stories get leaked, and it didn’t come from me,” Barkley said. “It’s all about respect. That’s really what it is.” Despite it all, Albert Breer of TheMMQB.com tweets that “everyone” (including Barkley, GM Joe Schoen, and head coach Brian Daboll) wanted to get a deal done.
- Barkley wasn’t the only franchise-tagged RB to not get a long-term deal today, as Josh Jacobs and Tony Pollard didn’t ink new contracts. Breer points to two specific changes to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2011 that may have led to today’s results (Twitter link). First, the CBA made it so no player could earn a contract until after their third year in the NFL. Second, the league “strengthened penalties” for holdouts dissuaded players from sitting out. Combined, these two rule changes ended up preventing RBs from taking “a hard line when their value is highest,” per Breer.
Wouldn’t adding a clause to guarantee against being tagged next year count as negotiating after the period determined by the CBA ended? If he were to sign upon receiving that guarantee, he’d have to report immediately.
The deadline was only for negotiating MULTI-YEAR contracts. The parties can negotiate a one year contract.
Although at this time the Giants would have no incentive to do so.
So the article is correct and the parties can add clauses, incentives, etc to a one year contract.
The comments made by the likes of Henry, CMC, Ekeler, and other RBs decrying rhe undervaluing of the RB is laughable.
These guys don’t get that this has become a passing league. And combined they and the 2 hold outs have won ZERO super bowls.
Ekeler had 107 receptions last year.
rbs need their own union.
Kansas City won the super bowl with a 7th round rookie at starting RB, people need to evolve and understand the times, draft an RB every third year and only pay elite pass catchers and pass blockers at the position
And the benched their 1st round RB on top of that for the Super Bowl.
He has to report by week ten or he Loses a year of seniority and dents retirement account, but I’m afraid he won’t be able to eat. Should we start a go fund me?
Ya let’s start one for the biggest nfl team in the largest market in the most lucrative sports league in the US so they can pay a guy
Sarcasm was lost on you.
One big problem is there are more running backs to go around. Teams realize having 2-3 backs and fresh legs might be more effective then one. It’s more of just an athletic position. Look at Antonio gibson barely any rb snaps in college and he’s an rb. It’s must next man up with rbs once you’re ready to get paid I’ll take the next guy.
One answer for Rbs would be let them
Enter the draft a year earlier after sophomore year. And it’s a very small
Percentage of backs that demand this type of pay also
One way to help RB’s is to allow them to hit their 2nd contracts a year early. Teams use these guys up on a rookie contract then release them for a younger option. Running backs are being taken advantage of, and though it may be a business these are people and they should be treated fairly. Shorter contracts for rookie running backs need to be a topic of discussion.
Lol RBs are still making millions, they aren’t being used, they chose a path and it turned out wrong, Derrick Henry would’ve been the highest paid player in the nfl in 1999 and then someone else’s market is reflective of what they do
Lol Not all RB’s are making Derrick Henry money.
They are being used, used up by rich owners and cheap organizations that USE popular young talent to win games and sell tickets, but do not want to pay them what they are worth compared to other positions.
“The path turned out wrong” is your own words.
Your right, cheap organizations and cheap owners rerouted the path to make it less desirable. What kind of message is that sending to young athletes looking forward to a future in the NFL?
Funny thing about a CBA – both sides bargain to include/exclude language that benefits their clients. Breer failed to mention that the players got a bigger share of league revenue in exchange for the owners getting protections against hold-outs.
He doesn’t need to save miles. Multiple years missed already took care of that for him. He’ll probably get injured holding out.
From all reports coming out the Giants offered 3 separate deals to Barkleys representative, all of which were in the $13 mm/ year range with approximately $22mm guaranteed. That was far above market value and more than double what Sanders got on the open market (4 years at $6mm/year.). Cook Fournett, Elliot, are still out there looking for a deal and his representative turns down that much?
If I were Saquon I would fire his novice female agent and sign with a more experienced and powerful agent. Clearly she did him wrong.
Good luck if he gets injured, has a fall back season and hits the Free Agent market as a 28 year old RB that has only had 2 healthy seasons out of 5 (can’t count this year yet. Last year he played 16 games but for the last 10 games played with a bad shoulder that would cause him to miss time during the game. So in reality he only has 1 healthy season out of 5), I bet that $13mm would be looking pretty good!
What exactly does the gender of his agent have to do with anything?