The Giants had a bye in Week 11 and that meant there was a lot of time for memories of their 34-27 loss to the Jets in Week 10 to linger.
One of the foulest memories of that game was running back Saquon Barkley gaining one yard on 13 carries. On Thursday, Barkley said he didn’t spend all of his time off going through what went wrong in that game.
Rather than do that, Barkley looked in the history books and found that he’s not the first to crash and burn so spectacularly. More significantly, he found that such flops aren’t predictive of future success.
“It was one of those games where you watch the film and you just put it away,” Barkley said, via the team’s website. “I did research and I was like, ‘I have to be the first back ever to have a game like that.’ Then, I did research, and I’m not trying to put myself on that level and compare myself to that person, but Barry Sanders had a game where he had 16 carries and zero yards against the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs. I don’t think that stopped him from having a great career. If anything, I would think it pushed him and motivated him to be better.”
Sanders actually had 13 carries for minus-1 yards in that 1994 playoff loss to Green Bay, so it’s a good example for Barkley to use of a bad day meaning little in future outings. He’ll have a chance to show the same is true for him against the Bears this weekend.