The New York Giants signed quarterback Daniel Jones to a four-year, $160 million contract last offseason but were unable to ink running back Saquon Barkley to a multi-year deal of his own.
Instead, the Giants designated Barkley their franchise player and after a brief standoff, ultimately signed him to a modified version of the one-year tender.
That’s something that didn’t sit well with linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux. In fact, it made him “mad.”
“I believe in Daniel Jones,” Thibodeaux said on the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast. “What I’m mad about is that Saquon — because if you look at the game, the tape, Saquon was responsible for at least 30 percent of our explosive plays, talking about the year [2022] we won the playoff game.
“So, for me and for the integrity of working together and hard work, and we all believe the same things, I feel like Saquon should have got paid first. That’s what I feel.”
Thibodeaux is not the first teammate to express support for Barkley but he is the first to call out Jones’ contract and make it a one or the other issue.
The problem Thibodeaux and others fail to recognize is that — whether they agree with it or not — the running back market no longer yields massive contracts. General manager Joe Schoen was willing to go to a certain point and then there was a line in the sand. Barkley and his representatives pushed for a contract similar to that of Christian McCaffrey and that just wasn’t going to happen.
Barkley’s injury history and the short shelf life of NFL running backs made it impossible for Schoen to break the bank. And while many don’t like hearing that, they are valid concerns when it comes to a long-term investment.
“I don’t know the back end — maybe it’s a franchise [tag], maybe it’s an extension, maybe it’s blah, blah, blah,” said Thibodeaux. “That’s none of my business. I have to focus on me. . . Because we see it. As a team, we know who’s putting in work and not.”
To his credit, no one puts in more work than Jones. That’s something even Barkley would attest to.
The problem with the Jones contract is that it was bungled from the very start. Schoen declined Jones’ fifth-year option and that ultimately backed him into a corner when Jones put up career-best numbers in 2022. And had they franchised DJ instead of signing him to a long-term deal, there would have been no money (or tag) left over for Barkley.
Meanwhile, Barkley’s modified deal, which added $900,000 in incentives, made him one of the league’s highest-paid running backs based on a yearly average. However, none of those incentives were hit and he ended up earning the $10.1 million that the original tag called for.
Barkley is again an impending free agent and the Giants appear to be in no rush to sign him long-term.
