There are some worrying-sounding reports around Saquon Barkley. He's looking for a new contract, and the Giants haven't been willing to meet his demands; they've franchised him. It doesn't sound like this stalemate will end soon.
Barkley tells the Daily News that sitting out the season "is a card I could play." So that doesn't sound good. Since he hasn't signed the franchise tender, he's not technically under contract, so it wouldn't be a holdout.
Under the terms of the franchise tag, the team has until July 17th to work out a deal, so there's still some time for a deal to get done. Based on the last couple of years, it seems like he's pretty important to the bottom line -- wins and losses.
I dug out the game logs from Barkley's last two seasons with the team, and how New York fared when Barkley was available and putting up big numbers, versus when he wasn't. It was a pretty big difference.
In the 13 games that Barkley played and put up big numbers the last two seasons -- I went with 17-plus fantasy points as the cutoff -- New York went 8-4-1. Barkley scored in 11 of those contests.
| BARKLEY WITH 17-PLUS PPR, 2021-2022 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Opp | Result | Run | No | Rec | TD | PPR |
| 2022 | at Tenn. | W 21-20 | 164 | 6 | 30 | 1 | 33.4 |
| 2021 | at N.O. | W 27-21 | 52 | 5 | 74 | 2 | 29.6 |
| 2022 | at Min. | L 24-27 | 84 | 8 | 49 | 1 | 27.3 |
| 2022 | Hou. | W 24-16 | 152 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 23.0 |
| 2022 | at Wash. | W 20-12 | 87 | 5 | 33 | 1 | 23.0 |
| 2022 | Dall. | L 16-23 | 81 | 4 | 45 | 1 | 22.6 |
| 2021 | Atl. | L 14-17 | 51 | 6 | 43 | 1 | 21.4 |
| 2022 | at G.B. | W 27-22 | 70 | 3 | 36 | 1 | 19.6 |
| 2022 | Wash. | T 20-20 | 63 | 5 | 18 | 1 | 19.1 |
| 2021 | at LAC | L 21-37 | 64 | 3 | 31 | 1 | 18.5 |
| 2022 | Balt. | W 24-20 | 83 | 3 | 12 | 1 | 18.5 |
| 2022 | Chi. | W 20-12 | 146 | 2 | 16 | 0 | 18.2 |
| 2022 | at Jac. | W 23-17 | 110 | 4 | 25 | 0 | 17.5 |
| Record | 8-4-1 | ||||||
In the 21 games he either wasn't active for (5) or played but was held to modest or lesser production (16; those games are shown in the table below), the team went just 5-16. Barkley scored only twice in those contests.
| BARKLEY UNDER 17 PPR, 2021-2022 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Opp | Result | Run | No | Rec | TD | PPR |
| 2022 | at Sea. | L 13-27 | 53 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 15.2 |
| 2022 | at Dall. | L 20-28 | 39 | 4 | 13 | 1 | 15.2 |
| 2021 | at Mia. | L 9-20 | 55 | 6 | 19 | 0 | 13.4 |
| 2022 | Car. | W 19-16 | 72 | 3 | 16 | 0 | 11.8 |
| 2021 | at T.B. | L 10-30 | 25 | 6 | 31 | 0 | 11.6 |
| 2021 | Dall. | L 6-21 | 50 | 4 | 24 | 0 | 11.4 |
| 2021 | at Chi. | L 3-29 | 102 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10.2 |
| 2021 | Phil. | W 13-7 | 40 | 4 | 13 | 0 | 9.3 |
| 2021 | at Wash. | L 29-30 | 57 | 2 | 12 | 0 | 8.9 |
| 2021 | Wash. | L 7-22 | 30 | 3 | 19 | 0 | 7.9 |
| 2022 | Ind. | W 38-10 | 58 | 2 | -5 | 0 | 7.3 |
| 2022 | Phil. | L 22-48 | 28 | 2 | 20 | 0 | 6.8 |
| 2022 | Det. | L 18-31 | 22 | 2 | 13 | 0 | 5.5 |
| 2021 | at Phil. | L 10-34 | 32 | 1 | -4 | 0 | 3.8 |
| 2021 | Den. | L 13-27 | 26 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3.7 |
| 2021 | at Dall. | L 20-44 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.9 |
| Record | 3-13-0 | ||||||
In fairness, there's a chicken-or-egg component to the contrast -- in some cases, Barkley was likely putting up big numbers because the team was winning, perhaps with Daniel Jones or the defense doing more of the heavy lifting.
But however you want to assign the credit, New York has been a lot better the last couple of seasons with Barkley on the field putting up big numbers as a runner and receiver. If he's not under contract and they've got some combination of Matt Breida, Oklahoma fifth-rounder Eric Gray, or some veteran free agent handling the backfield, the team's prospects will look considerably worse.
--Andy Richardson