Saquon Barkley on his return: 'I kind of just followed my heart'
On the second day of training camp, Saquon Barkley met the media.
His words, at times, were emotional, but he didn’t become emotional.
He seemed to speak from the heart.
And it’s plainly obvious that no matter the negotiations between the Barkley camp and the Giants over the past months, Barkley reported on time for training camp for one reason: Because he wanted to.
He wanted to be on the field with his teammates. He wanted to be back in the locker room. He has a coach he trusts in Brian Daboll and he knows how important he is to the Giants fortunes.
“How’s it feel to be here?” Barkley said, repeating a question during a session with reporters that lasted just over 13 minutes on Thursday afternoon after the Giants concluded practice. “It feels good. I’m glad to be back in the locker room. It’s good to see familiar faces in the facility. I’m doing what I love, I’m out there, playing football and I’m happy.”
When asked what he's seen from Barkley, Daboll said, "Normal Saquon." He meant that as a compliment.
Barkley's camp and the Giants negotiated for months on a new contract. Given the franchise tag by the Giants in March, Barkley stayed away from offseason workouts with the team. Contract negotiations stalled and eventually ended.
He is back on a one-year deal.
Why did Barkley choose to report instead of engaging in a holdout?
“I had an epiphany,” he said. “The reality of it is, I kind of just followed my heart. Obviously, I heard what everyone was saying in the news, on social media, but I kind of just followed my heart.”
In the end, as the Giants players were reporting Tuesday for training camp on Wednesday, Barkley simply couldn’t stay away.
“From a business view, I felt it was the best thing I could do,” he said. “Some people may agree or disagree with this. To sit out or sit in, I felt that for this year specifically, the best thing I could do for myself would be coming back, going out there, playing the game that I love, playing for my teammates, doing something I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid.”
He led with his heart, not his mind.
The lack of respect from NFL teams regarding the running back position clearly bothers Barkley, who wants to affect change. But even that wouldn’t allow him to stay away from the sport and the team he loves.
“Obviously, I know what’s going on with the running back situation and me being tagged and the value of the running back continuing to go down,” Barkley said. “The only way I feel like that’s going to change is someone has to make it change. God willing, hopefully I can be one of the people who does that.”
While Barkley remains one of the Giants' most important players, he watched from the sidelines as teammates Daniel Jones, Dexter Lawrence and Andrew Thomas received big money contract extensions.
Did that bother him?
“No,” Barkley said, “because at the end of the day, everybody who knows me, I’m all about my teammates and my brothers getting paid. I’m all about success coming to them. Even though my situation didn’t go the way I would like it to go, Andrew Thomas signed a big deal, Daniel signed a big deal, Dex signed a big deal. That’s deserving. Those guys deserve it. I’m so happy for them.
“What I will say for the running back position – not speaking necessarily on my teammates that got signed – there’s a lot of running backs out here that are pivotal key points to teams having success in this league. And the way we are getting devalued, I think it’s not fair at all. But life’s not fair. And hopefully, God willing, I stay healthy so I can show them and don’t have to tell them.”
Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.
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