With incentives.
"The Giants, according to sources, offered Barkley a multi-year deal worth $12.5 million a season at the bye week, then increased that number to $13 million with a chance to get to $14 million in incentives shortly after the season."
"Barkley rejected both deals. He and his agent Kim Miale obviously overestimated the running-back market. They could argue that Barkley doesn’t know his true value because he was blocked from testing the free-agent market after the Giants used the franchise tag on him."
If true, man did #26 & his agent F up. As for that last sentence, no one is offering anything close to what we proposed to Saquon.
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Sure, an offer was made, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea, although it might have seemed like one at the time, and it appears that Schoen has come to realize that. Everything he's done since where the offense is concerned has been to facilitate a more dynamic passing game. Even drafting Gray, hardly a home-run threat, but as sure a handed as they come as a receiver you of the backfield.
You don't transform your offense overnight, and you certainly won't ever do it without recognizing where the bulk of your resources should go. In the short-term, the Giants may be stronger with Barkley. I'm hoping Schoen is building for the long-term.
If he's smart, he takes it, and maximizes his off-field income in the NYC market.
Barkley had 1600 all purpose yards and 10 TDs last year. Not to mention nearly 300 carries. We can talk about hypothetically what Jones MAY do, how the offense MAY look, but if anyone who says SB wasn’t the entirety of the offense last year isn’t being honest with themselves. Teams were throwing 8-9 guys in the box and instead of going with the passing game, we started running sets with sometimes 2 extra linemen. You can blame it on the OL, the WRs, and you can say those areas improved, but if Barkley wasn’t on the team last year we’re a 4 win team.
He’s a truly great player at a position with an historically short shelf life. I like the way that Schoen and company went at this, I like the news that he was offered a good size contract because taking care of those types of players matters in a locker room, and I love the player, but to OBJRoyal’s point, it’s a shame the way it played out. But to sit there and act like there was any other options on the offense, maybe besides Jones’ legs, last year is silly.
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banking on that at least one owner or GM would see him as "the missing piece of the puzzle" and offer him big money in free agency. There's always that one.
But he knew the Giants would tag him, so he wasn't gonna make it to free agency.
No, he didn't because Jones was a possible franchise tag. He didn't know until Jones signed the big contract.
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If you watch the various analysis videos being posted on this site, you can see that every play we run fakes/gives to Barkley. The defense is schemed up to stop Barkley because is the only threat we have. Jones runs, James slants, are all possible because the defense is geared to stopping Barkley and Daboll knows it.
The fac that he got the stats he did with the constant focus he had just shows his skill. If he leaves its not just the 1650 yds production we are losing, its a lot of other open yardage too
You’re looking at it too myopically. In todays NFL yardage is an inflated and hollow stat. We got lucky in 2022 with synergy of health and decent play at QB, RB and some great coaching.
Giants cannot win sustainably or at an elite level with Barkley as a highly paid and highly risky centric focus of the offense. They need spread options and a diversified passing attack with running as a secondary attribute
I think both of you are right. The 2022 Giants depended on Barkley, but they won't take the next step as an offense until they're more explosive in the passing game.
I think many are underrating Barkley's contributions to the team's 2022 success.
No, he didn't because Jones was a possible franchise tag. He didn't know until Jones signed the big contract.
So i think this may be what was happening. Moreover, perhaps he felt that even if he wasn't offered what he wished on FA maybe he'd land on a SB contender. I'm sure that was a consideration.
So i think this may be what was happening. Moreover, perhaps he felt that even if he wasn't offered what he wished on FA maybe he'd land on a SB contender. I'm sure that was a consideration.
Now, he's got to have a good year, stay healthy, and prove that he's much better than Gray, who many think is a steal.
Either way, Schoen holds all the cards.
To quote Sydney Pollack in one of the great screenplays of our youth: "I'm your agent, not your mother... I'm supposed to field offers."
Not defending Miale, just saying we don't know.
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but they can find a replacement for less money.
26's injuries have truly diminished his value as well as reinforced some of the concerns with paying a RB, but this idea that you can easily replace him is questionable to me. For one, this team hasn't proven to be able to find a high quality back on the cheap for quite some time. BJ and AB were a great duo but neither was that full time starter and bell cow RB.
I'm not saying that Big Blue needs to overpay for 26, but I'd hate to see what this offense looked like last year without him back there.
If they do let him go after this season, then I guess we'll truly see if they are able to replace him with Gray or others.
Teams don't need a "full time starter and bell cow RB" to be successful. They need an effective running game.
Given the high rate of injuries at the position as well as the relatively low price for RBs, cobbling together an effective running game with a committee approach is absolutely a viable alternative to having a singular stud RB. In fact, it may be preferable, since it spreads the injury risk and reduces the need to pivot the offensive scheme too dramatically when the RB1 inevitably gets banged up along the way. Hating to see what last year's offense would have looked like without SB (we did see that, obviously) is exactly why being over-levered to a singular RB is problematic. Without SB (or the equivalent), the depth chart gets assembled differently, and there isn't the same drop-off from RB1 to RB2/RB3.
This thread reminds me a lot of a silly victory lap thread we had here a few years ago celebrating the workloads of Todd Gurley and Zeke Elliott with the implication that the workhorse RB was about to have a renaissance. Funny how most now acknowledge what the SB fanboys (really, the DG fanboys) refused to accept back then - that the "bell cow RB" was no longer a necessary piece to the NFL puzzle.
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Barkley makes Jones and the offense go
Not good to be locked in to a narrative.
It s preferable to allow an opinion to evolve as different facts unfold before you.
That sounds an awful lot like predicting yesterday's weather rather than actually having an opinion.
It’s a QB league still - if you don’t have one of the top guys then applying the rules they play by to everyone else makes little sense. Just because Mahomes can win a title with me running the ball doesn’t make that a viable strategy. 20-25 teams don’t have the luxury and we are one of them, IMO. So we need to manufacture offense in other ways and one of them, which proved to work despite so much working against us, was the Jones/Barkley combo. And if Schoen can tie the two players together, financially, I don’t see what the problem is.
The tag for one year isn't a big deal and then you move on from Saquon next offseason if contract terms cannot meet value.
Barkley's value to the Giants is off-field as well as on field so this may go beyond Schoen and Mara may have something to say about it.
Clear preference for having him on the roster and hopefully the sides come to fair and equitable for a couple more years. Presume we will hear more when OTA days get into full gear.
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In comment 16116440 Mdgiantsfan said:
I don't think it's a matter of replacing one bell-cow back with another. I think it's about replacing an offense that relies on a bell-cow back to be successful with one that relies on a strong passing game.
Tiki Barber was "the entire Giants' offense." Then he retired and they won a Super Bowl. If Barkley is gone I'm sure the coaches will adapt a strategy to overcome the loss.
Tiki's career coincided with 3 of the Giants all-time top receivers including #1 (Toomer). BTW, Tiki is #2. With Toomer, Hilliard and Shockey, Tiki was a focus but far from the whole offense.
Far as he is likable in his personality yes that is a plus but any half decent PR team can do that with a productive player.