This would be a catastrophe for Big Blue if Barkley sits out. The New York Giants are looking at a terrifying prospect of losing Saquon Barkley for the entire 2023 season as the running back is threating to hold out until he gets a new deal.
The Giants are screwed if Barkley doesn’t suit up for them.
The New York Giants and RB Saquon Barkley are evidently pretty far apart in contract negotiations as the running back has come out and said that he is willing to sit out of the 2023 season if he’s not given a new long term contract. And, as I’ve made obvious so far, I think that would be a season-ruining DISASTER for the Giants.
In all of the NFL, I don’t think there is a more important player to a contending team than Saquon Barkley is to the New York Giants.
Obviously, there’s better running backs in the league, such as Derrick Henry, Nick Chubb, Christian McCaffrey, and Josh Jacobs, and there’s more “valuable” players, such as Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, etc., but I’d argue the loss of all these players to their, respective, teams would not be nearly as impactful as if Saquon Barkley didn’t suit up for the New York Giants.
To say that Barkley is the Giants offense would be an extreme understatement as Barkley racked up 1,312 rushing yards, 295 rushing attempts, 4.4 yards/ATT, 10 rushing TDs, 57 receptions, 338 receiving yards, 5.9 yards/REC, and made his second Pro-Bowl. Pretty good, right?
Well, these stats look even better when you see that Barkley’s contributions accounted for 52% of the Giants total rushing yards (2,519), 57% of the Giants total rushing plays (520), 48% of the Giants total rushing TDs (21), 26% of the Giants total TDs (39), 10% of the Giants total receiving yards (3,431), and 29% of the Giants total offensive yards gained (5,676).
That’s impressive for one player to account for on a playoff team.
Again, you’ll definitely find better stats and higher contributions for different players on different teams, but the Giants would not have been a 9-7-1 team, the 6th seed in the NFC, and certainly wouldn’t have won their Wild Card matchup 31-24 over the 3rd seeded Minnesota Vikings without Barkley.
As we’ve seen in the last three seasons (2019: 4-12 record, 2020: 6-10 record, 2021: 4-12 record; two head coaches fired) when Saquon Barkley has not played in at least 94% of his team’s games (16/17 or 15/16 games/season) in a season, the New York Giants are worse than a raging, smelly New York dumpster fire.
Barkley’s supreme talent not only allows the Giants and HC Brian Daboll to do a plethora of various running and passing schemes that catch out defenses, but he also draws away attention from other members of the offense.
It’s not really a shocker that with the reintroduction of Barkley into the Giants offense full-time, Daniel Jones also had a career year with his career-high 67.2 completion percentage, career-high 3,205 passing yards, 15 passing TDs, a career-low 5 INTs, career-high 120 RUSH attempts, career-high 708 rushing yards, and a career-high 7 rushing TDs.
The harmony of the Giants offense runs through a healthy, determined, focused, and productive Saquon Barkley, and that harmony is going to be completed smashed if Barkley decides to sit out of the 2023 season.
Now, I understand the Giants management’s reasons for not wanting to pay Barkley a huge contract extension given the short lifespans of running backs and the seemingly easy transition between one great RB and the next, yet I just don’t think that logic applies in this situation.
Barkley’s role really can’t be replaced with some 7th round pick or a free agent as the former Duke star is just too intrinsic in Daboll’s gameplan.
So, for the sake of all Giants fans, the upper management better figure out a solution with Barkley or else they’re going to see riots on the streets of New York when the Giants are a 4-12 team again.
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