Will Hernandez wants Saquon Barkley to follow his footsteps
Giants guard Will Hernandez speaks to the media during the first day of Giants rookie mini-camp at Quest Diagnostics Training Center on Friday, May 11, 2018. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
When it comes to clearing a path for Saquon Barkley, guard Will Hernandez takes his job seriously.
“I just try to tell him to follow me wherever I go,” the second-round pick out of UTEP said on Friday at rookie minicamp with the Giants. “I’ll wait for him to get his food and then he’ll walk behind me. Yeah, I’m trying to get used to it.”
It may not be to that exact extent, but Hernandez and Barkley will clearly be linked for most of whatever their combined tenure with the team winds up being. The running back with the crazy moves and the big lineman opening holes for him.
The two players met at the Combine, but this weekend is their first time together as teammates.
“I saw him again here and we recognized each other right away,” Hernandez said. “He had already reached out to me before I even landed in New York, so that was pretty cool.”
Barkley isn’t the only familiar face (although he may be the most famous).
“I’ve gotten to know a few guys,” Hernandez said of the rookies. “Some of them I already knew from the Senior Bowl and even the Combine, but yeah, we clicked here right away. I feel really comfortable already and this is my first day. A lot of the guys here are on the same page with the same goals and the same mindset as me, so it makes it real easy to get along and we’re having fun with it already.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
