Saquon Barkley is having a historic debut season for the Philadelphia Eagles. The two-time Pro Bowl running back is on track for 2,151 rushing yards and 2,548 yards from scrimmage (combined rushing and receiving yards), which would both be NFL single-season records. Eric Dickerson had 2,105 yards in 16 games to set the single-season rushing record in 1984 with the Los Angeles Rams. The single-season yards from scrimmage record is 2,509 by Chris Johnson in 16 games with the Tennessee Titans in 2009.
Barkley already has a career-high and league-leading 1,392 rushing yards in 11 games. Barkley is averaging an NFL-best 6.2 yards per carry. His 10 rushing touchdowns are tied for the fourth most in the NFL despite losing significant carries around the goal line to Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, who has 11 touchdowns on the ground, because the “tush push” is virtually unstoppable. Barkley’s 1,649 yards from scrimmage also lead the NFL. Only Barkley and Hall of Famer Jim Brown in 1963 have had 1,300 rushing yards, 6.2 yards per carry and 10 rushing touchdowns through 11 games.
Barkley has put himself squarely in the NFL MVP conversation after a dominating performance in Week 11’s 37-20 win over the Rams. He had a career-high 255 rushing yards, which included touchdown runs of 70 and 72 yards. Barkley’s 255 rushing yards and 302 scrimmage yards are both the ninth-most in a game in NFL history. The last running back to win NFL MVP is Adrian Peterson with the Minnesota Vikings in 2012.
The Eagles are certainly getting their money’s worth from signing Barkley to a three-year, $37.75 million contract averaging $12,583,333 per year during free agency in March. The deal is worth as much as $46.75 million through incentives and salary escalators. There are $26 million in guarantees, of which $24.5 million was fully guaranteed at signing. At Barkley’s current pace, he will earn $3 million of the $9 million performance bonuses in his contract this season.
Barkley joining the Eagles, an NFC East rival, was New York Giants co-owner John Mara’s worst nightmare. During the offseason version of HBO’s Hard Knocks, Mara said to Giants general manager Joe Schoen, “I’ll have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia.” The Eagles are legitimate Super Bowl contenders with a 9-2 record. It didn’t have to be this way for the Giants. Barkley was the top signing priority two years ago when he was in the final year of his rookie contract. The Giants attempted to negotiate a new deal with Barkley prior to a Week 9 bye during the 2022 season. An offer averaging $12.5 million per year was reportedly made by the Giants. Schoen indicated at the time the two sides “weren’t really that close” to reaching an agreement.
Things changed by the time a much better than expected 2022 season ended with a divisional playoff round loss to the Eagles. The organization’s main focus was on keeping quarterback Daniel Jones, who also had an expiring contract, in the fold because he was thought to have taken a big step forward by emerging as a capable dual-threat quarterback. Barkley was easily a better running back than Jones was a quarterback, but passers are more important and valuable than runners in today’s NFL.
The situation was reminiscent of the Titans in 2020. Ryan Tannehill resurrected his career to become the NFL’s 2019 Comeback Player of the Year after replacing Marcus Mariota at quarterback six games into the season, which was a catalyst to the Titans advancing to the AFC Championship game. Signing Tannehill long term assured running back Derrick Henry of a franchise tag.
A strong desire to get a deal done with Jones led to the Giants giving him a four-year, $160 million contract (worth up to $195 million thanks to incentives and salary escalators) with $104 million in guarantees, of which $81 million was fully guaranteed at signing in March 2023. The $40 million-per-year deal put Jones in a tie with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford as the NFL’s seventh-highest-paid player. Barkley had made it abundantly clear on numerous occasions he wanted to remain with the Giants long term. According to multiple reports, the Giants upped Barkley’s offer to $13 million per year with incentives, making the deal worth as much as $14 million per year before designating him as a franchise player.
Jones’ 2022 performance proved to be an anomaly. A sharp regression from 2022 resulted in Jones’ benching out of this season’s Week 10 bye to ensure that the Giants wouldn’t be on the hook for his $23 million 2025 base salary injury guarantee with him getting hurt. The Giants released Jones at his request a couple of days later.
Putting aside that $49.584 million could have been saved by signing Barkley long term, using a $32.416 million non-exclusive franchise tag on Jones in 2023, and finding a different starting quarterback this past offseason, playing hardball with the 2018 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year was a mistake. The Giants surprisingly pulled their offer instead of just tabling discussions after an impasse was reached in March because of negative developments in the running back market. Teams exercised fiscal restraint with ball-carriers in 2023 free agency, and a couple of high priced running backs (Dalvin Cook and Ezekiel Elliott) were released.
Ordinarily, discussions are just tabled or paused when an impasse is reached. That was my experience as an agent. Rarely was an offer completely taken off the table. It typically happened after there was a warning where I had a specified amount of time to accept before the offer expired. This didn’t come months before a deadline, like in Barkley’s case. When negotiations resumed prior to the mid-July deadline for franchise players to sign long term, the Giants’ best offer to Barkley was reportedly for three years in the $11 million per year neighborhood with $22 million to $23 million in guarantees.
Getting a deal done was going to be difficult since the Giants didn’t offer Barkley a chance to save face in the negotiations by eventually putting the previous offer back on the table or something close to it with a modified structure that was more team friendly. My experience as an agent was that when a team tried to win a negotiation, like the Giants, rather doing a fair deal, there was a tendency to create ill will with the player.
The Giants were fortunate that Barkley that didn’t take the same approach as fellow running back Josh Jacobs, who was also given a franchise tag. Jacobs didn’t report to the Las Vegas Raiders until the latter part of August after signing a one-year deal for $1.7 million above his $10.091 million franchise tag totaling $11.791 million, which was unprecedented. Barkley getting $909,000 of incentives, none of which were earned, added to his $10.091 million franchise tender were enough for him to report to training camp on time.
The Giants’ contract hubris and arrogance continued after the season with Schoen refusing to make Barkley an offer and asking for informal matching rights. Barkley characterized a phone call shown during a “Hard Knocks” episode where Schoen communicated the Giants’ position to him as a slap in the face.
I know from my agent days just how frustrating and insulting an approach like the Giants took can be to a client. I had a couple of free agent clients whose team similarly left the door open for a return. The players went from wanting to spend their entire career with the team, like Barkley, when talks broke off before the season started, to playing anywhere else by the time free agency was approaching.
When a substantial offer from another team on the open market was received, the instructions usually were just to inform the team about signing elsewhere as a courtesy without engaging in any further negotiations. In some instances, the team tried to make a last ditch effort to keep the player to no avail. These players felt it shouldn’t take another team’s interest to finally do what should have happened already.
It’s safe to say that Barkley wouldn’t be the duplicating his performance if he had remained with the Giants. One of Philadelphia’s strengths is the offensive line. In Pro Football Focus’ offensive line rankings updated weekly, the Eagles have the NFL’s third best unit. By contrast, the Giants’ offensive line ranks 28th. Nonetheless, the Giants probably wouldn’t have a 1-5 record in one-score games this season with Barkley on the roster. Barkley would have been a significant upgrade over 2024 fifth-round pick Tyrone Tracy Jr., who is leading the Giants in rushing. Barkley has been one of the NFL’s best dual threat running backs since entering the NFL in 2018.
According to NFL’s Next Gen Stats, Barkley is second in the NFL with 1.99 rush yards over expected per attempt while Tracy is at 0.02 yards. This isn’t the first time Barkley has excelled in this metric. As a rookie, Barkley led the NFL with 1.54 rush yards over expected per attempt in 2018.
Barkley is getting the last laugh by having a career year for the Eagles with the type of contract the Giants didn’t give him. Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll recently received a vote of confidence from Giants co-owner John Mara. The Giants imploding and Barkley’s success may get both of them fired despite being told their jobs were a safe a few weeks ago. Mara probably regrets that he didn’t intervene and mandate Barkley’s re-signing given how the 2024 season is unfolding.
