After Saturday night’s 38-7 loss to the Eagles, Giants running back Saquon Barkley said that he couldn’t envision that game being the final one he played for the team but nothing’s for certain as they head into the offseason.
Barkley played out the final year of his rookie contract in 2022 and the team’s in-season talks about a new deal didn’t bear any fruit. General Manager Joe Schoen told reporters on Monday that the two sides “weren’t really that close” during talks that wrapped up during the team’s November bye week.
The plan is to pick up those conversations again and the team is very open to bringing Barkley back, but Schoen said the team needs to take some time to set the table for the entire offseason.
“Saquon is a good player, he’s a good teammate, I loved getting to know him this season, and he’s a guy that we would like to have back, it’s just – again, we haven’t had our end-of-season meetings yet,” Schoen said, via SNY. “We’re less than 48 hours after that game, so everybody’s going to step back, take the emotion out of it, evaluate the roster, and then again, we have to operate under the salary cap with how we’re going to divvy up, how we’re going to create the roster, what at the priority positions and how are we going to move forward, but we would like to have Saquon back, if it works out.”
With quarterback Daniel Jones also out of contract, the Giants have a lot of pieces to put into place before they start any serious discussions about who will be back for another run with the team in 2023.