Giants RB Saquon Barkley: Playing through pain is part of my game

Saquon Barkley tweaked his ankle again during the loss to Dallas on Sunday.

At his locker on Thursday, he said he will play through it.

“Yeah, they landed on it,” Barkley said. “That’s part of dealing with a high-ankle sprain. It’s something that’s not just going to magically go away.”

Barkley is devoted to the Giants, of course.

He almost unfailingly does the right thing for the greater good of the team, so this should not come as a surprise.

Asked essentially what it would take for him to opt out of a game, including Sunday’s at Washington, Barkley said he wouldn’t consider it.

“I've been injured enough,” Barkley said. “I've torn an ACL before, I've been out for a whole season. So, if I'm able to, for the love of the game, go out there and play and be able to protect myself and compete for my team, that's something I’ll always try to do.”

Going back to his college days at Penn State, Barkley welcomed pressure and expectations.

When offensive coordinator Mike Kafka was asked Thursday about limiting Barkley’s workload — the question presumed that perhaps Barkley would then be fresher, say, next season — he said no.

“I think we’re just mostly focused on today and how that works,” Kafka said. “I know the guys are getting their prehab and trying to get their bodies right for this week. I think every player is a little bit different. Some guys can take that, some guys you’ve got to manage. It’s on a player-to-player basis.”

Barkley is among the elite players in the NFL.

He has also learned lessons along the way.

For example, particularly with Tommy DeVito quarterbacking the Giants, the team may be best served now by having Barkley carrying — literally and figuratively — a heavy load on offense.

That is not something that Barkley would even consider shying away from.

Even in the best of times, Barkley is always among their best options.

But when it comes around for his next contract, Barkley could be essentially penalized for his team-first approach because of that workload.

To that, Barkley didn’t flinch.

“Loyalty means nothing,” he said. “Loyalty, that doesn’t mean anything. No matter how loyal, no matter how committed you are, it's a business at the end of the day. That's something that I've learned.”

He likely was referencing his most recent contract negotiations with the Giants. He also was realistic when it comes to the perception of his position of running back.

“The way I try to handle that is to not really focus on that, try my best not to think about it,” Barkley said. “I feel like every week, I have to answer a question about it, which I get it, you guys are doing your jobs, but that's the only time it really crosses my mind to be completely honest. Because if not, I would go insane. I would lose my mind if I was able to focus on that. So, I try to keep the main thing the main thing and continue to enjoy the process and take it one day at a time.”

On Oct. 22, the Giants enjoyed one of their two wins on the season, 14-7 over Washington.

This time around, the Giants will have DeVito at quarterback.

If the Washington defense chooses to focus on stopping Barkley on Sunday, who could blame them?

"They're going to come in, they have Saquon and we know how special he is as a running back," Guardians coach Ron Rivera said. "We’ve got to be able to contain him.”

By Kimberly Jones

kimberly.jones@newsday.comkimjonessports

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.