This whole thing was a big charade.
Barkley was clearly the best offensive player on the field, and he should've been resigned. This team made the bigger commitment to a less talented player in Jones who was benched instead of a franchise back in his prime. This is pathetic, somehow the Eagles found the money to Sign Hurts and a #1 WR in Brown and still have a solid oline and sign arguably best back in the league that used to be a Giant.
What Schoen planned is not working and this is pathetically embarrassing at this point cause now the next big move is to get rid of Jones thr guy you made a big financial commitment to 2 years ago.
I said this before, you donot get better by letting the most talented players on the team walk.
the Giants are a BAD TEAM.. having a 14-15 million dollar RB on a bad team is a HORRIBLE idea..
Ive said this 100 times..
Running backs are like icing on a cake.. You need GOOD CAKE.. you put icing on a bad cake.. the cake STILL SUCKS...
The Giants have bad cake..
Philly isnt bad cake.. they have good OL.. Solid QB play.. Soild WRs..
Paying Barkley would be STUPID on this roster.. the team would still suck
I know this is unpopular, but the decision to draft him at #2 wasn't the killer mistake. The decision to draft him at #2 and then basically try to make the team a passing team was the mistake.
Want to take an All World RB at #2? Fine. Effing COMMIT to it, hire a running HC/OC and build a beastly run blocking OL and make people deal with it.
To take him at #2 and then continue on with west coast offenses and shotgun bullshit just shows you the team has no real plan or over-arching strategy. They just pick talented players and hope for the best.
Look, Barkely was never going to do well here as long as Jones was QB. Yes, it sucks to lose him, but we've seen his act before. He can have great games, but he gets injured far too often. And he's not Walter Payton, he can't carry a team on his shoulders.
To sign Barkely long term would have been foolish. The Giants simply aren't in the position where he would be the difference in competing for a championship. The Eagles are in a different position, they may think their window is closing, and they need to make a splash to get further in the playoffs.
Here's a study about NFL running back effectiveness/age. The odds are that Barkely, like most running backs, will start declining after age 28.
The Peak age for a Running Back - ( New Window )
This as about as bad a handling of an asset as I have ever seen.
Honestly though, my feeling is that they should have let Barkley walk if he wanted a McCafree level deal. He breaks down every year, not worth the money. No RB is anymore.
The problem is Jones at QB, and the reactionary approach Schoen and ownership take with most everything they touch. They're just really not good at this.
2. Does anyone really think the Giants performance looks any different with Saquon in blue yesterday? I don't. The problem is Daniel Jones + (now, again) an inability to block consistently, not the absence of Saquon.
He got what he deserved by not bringing in actual QB competition, not from not signing Barkley
The mistake has nothing to do with Barkley but that we choose to sign jones to a long term contract. I was ok with it at the time. I feel like we made a mistake in not drafting JJ this year. Although I do love Nabors. I believe the same thing that Sy does. This team is a QB away from being a contender. And maybe some added depth
Then make him a security guard.
Was it Schoen or Mara!
Its still a bad, bad model for how to run an organization.
The refusal to fix the qb position alone should get them fired.
1. Bad team invests high draft pick on all world RB
2. Rookie all world RB lights the league on fire
3. Team drafts middle of the pack, but never quite high enough to make the full jump to the "next level."
4. Team signs all world RB to contract extension
5. Team cannot resign some of their better players due to cap issues.
6.As team acquires better players/talent, all world RB gets injured and/or slows down due to heavy workload.
7. Team and all world RB part ways due to lower production than salary....RB finishes career on another team.
LaDanian Tomlinson, Adrian Peterson, Ricky Williams...are examples. It also appears McCaffrey is going down this road now as well.
Give me the RB by committee approach with a great Oline and QB every time.
The problem is Jones at QB, and the reactionary approach Schoen and ownership take with most everything they touch. They're just really not good at this.
They needed to have been ruthless about getting a franchise quarterback. Trade Barkley in week 8 last season. Keep playing Jones, as more likely to lose games, and get a high draft pick, top three. Mara, Schoen and Daboll needed to be on the same page, and it's clear Mara wasn't.
If you go back to the start of the Gettleman reign, there was a similar problem: the Giants, starting with the owner, weren't clear about the s**t they were in. Mara deceived himself that the Giants were close to competing, and he's done it again with his estimation of Daniel Jones.
You have to start with a clear, non-emotional, unattached assessment of where you stand and Mara has failed that on two occasions now. Maybe Schoen has too. Gettleman almost certainly landed the job, because he bought into Mara's belief about the team.