The status of running back Saquon Barkley, the second pick in the 2018 draft, remains uncertain. Not long after comments from new G.M. Joe Schoen put Barkley in play for a trade, a report emerged that the Giants aren’t likely to trade him.
Barkley’s status is complicated by his fully-guaranteed salary of $7.2 million, the amount of his fifth-year option. Anyone who trades for Barkley would be assuming that cash obligation and cap figure.
And so the question becomes whether the Giants would pay some of the salary in order to facilitate a trade. In recent years, it has become an increasingly common device for unloading contracts that don’t reflect a player’s current market value, with his present team funding a chunk of the compensation in exchange for whatever the new team will surrender, typically in the form of draft picks.
The new team gets the player at a more palatable number. The old team gets some cash/cap relief and something tangible for the contract that has been shipped to a new team.
Given the broader running back market and Barkley’s injury history, no one will be lining up to take on a one-year, $7.2 million deal. They’d surely only do it for something much less. Even then, how much would they give up?
Running backs are plentiful, in every draft class. Unless a team believes Barkley will be ready to become once again the player he was early in his career, why give up, say, a fifth-round pick that could become a young running back who would arrive with a cheap (relatively speaking) contract and full tread on his tires?
It’s not Barkley’s fault that the Giants mistakenly made such a significant draft-pick investment in him. The move caused him to arrive in New York with unrealistic expectations. Given the very high risk of injury inherent to the position, picking a running back so high in today’s NFL almost always sets him up for failure, or at least the perception of it.
Barkley clearly has talent. He generated more than 2,000 yards from scrimmage as a rookie, starting every game. He then rushed for 1,003 yards in 2019, missing three due to injury.
Next came a torn ACL early in 2020 and a sluggish fourth season in 2021, with only 593 yards rushing in 13 games.
Could he land somewhere and have a great 2022 campaign? Absolutely. But $7.2 million is more to invest in the position than the realities of NFL economics for tailbacks would justify.
Thus, if a trade is going to happen, the Giants undoubtedly will be paying some of that money. They may end up paying all of it, and hoping that Barkley can turn the clock back to 2018.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that long ago. Within the confines of the life cycle of an NFL running back, it’s often an eternity.