BARK AND BITE!
Versatile Barkley adds serious punch to Giant offense
Barkley, along with Manning and Beckham, can elevate Giants offense to the next level
Saquon Barkley was as excited about the Giants drafting UTEP guard Will Hernandez in the second round as most Giants fans were about Barkley’s selection in round one. “I wanna go hug that guy,” Barkley joked to Nick Shafnisky, his friend and former Whitehall High School (Pa.) quarterback, when Hernandez went 34th overall Friday night. Barkley knew: GM Dave Gettleman wasn’t just bringing in Hernandez to protect Eli Manning; he drafted him to pave the way for New York’s new beefed-up running game, headlined by No. 26 in blue. It feels almost impossible for Barkley to live up to the hype of what he can do for the Giants’ offense, especially facing the pressure of proving Gettleman correct for passing on a first-round quarterback with Manning 37 years old.
The reality, though, is that head coach Pat Shurmur’s offense may be the perfect fit for the versatile Barkley, who also is a home run hitter with a nose for the end zone. And a commitment to the run under Shurmur, combined with Barkley’s and Odell Beckham Jr.’s breakaway abilities, could have the Giants offense set up for an explosive year.
“I want to get to the point where I’m a dominant player in the league and I have that presence,” Barkley said at his introductory press conference in East Rutherford on Saturday morning. “I think that’s why I was brought here: to bring an impact to the running game, to have that same domination that I had in college where a team wants to just shut me down and then it just opens up everyone else. And it’s vice versa: when you have Odell and Sterling (Shepard) and Eli throwing for 300400 yards, then they are not focused on the run game. And then I get to go.”
Shurmur frequently stresses how important it is to run the ball. “You have to run the football not just for your offense but for your team,” he said Thursday after drafting Barkley. “I have seen the effect that a great running back can have on teams.”
And Shurmur’s work as the Vikings’ offensive coordinator last season is a good blueprint for how the Giants plan to use Barkley’s many skills (The Giants are watching a lot of Vikings tape, too. Wideout Sterling Shepard said before the draft that he’s getting excited watching what the Minnesota receivers did in 2017.)
Shurmur’s Vikings last season called the fifth-most running plays (47.5%) in the NFL, per footballdb.com, while Minnesota called
just 52.5% passing plays (ranked 28th). The 2017 Ben McAdoo-Mike Sullivan Giants offense, comparatively, ranked 29th of 32 teams in running plays called (38%) versus 62% passing plays (fourth-most).
And when Minnesota’s run heavy offense was churning, the balance featured the backs in a big way but still opened up the field for production from the rest of the Vikings’ highend skill players.
Minnesota’s 29-19 Week 1 home win over New Orleans was a great example. Dalvin Cook, the Vikes’ well-rounded, second-round rookie running back out of Florida State, was still healthy (he torn his ACL in Week 4).
That week, Shurmur’s offense threw the ball 32 times and ran it 30 times, a near 5050 split. Cook had 22 carries for 127 yards. Eight of QB Sam Bradford’s 32 pass attempts went to running backs, including five targets to Cook. And all three of the Vikes’ top receiving targets got involved in a big way:
Nine catches for 157 yards for receiver Adam Thielen, seven catches for 93 yards and two TDs for receiver Stefon Diggs, and three grabs for 26 yards and a score for tight end Kyle Rudolph. So, yes, Beckham, Shepard and tight end Evan Engram all can get theirs, too.
It took a good offensive line to have that balance and a strong defense to hold a team like the Saints to 19 points. But the point is Shurmur features his running backs to help his overall offense. And here’s the thing about Barkley: because he can do it all, his presence on the field doesn’t give away the play call.
“He is a three-down running back,” Shurmur said. “He can run it, catch it and pass protect. He can be on the field as long as he can handle it. Certainly, we are going to sub him at times.”
At times. Probably not often. When (or if) they do, the hardrunning, capable receiver Wayne Gallman will be a formidable plug-in. Barkley has Shurmur and offensive coordinator Mike Shula salivating, though, there is no doubt.
“He is unique for me because he has quickness and he has speed. He can score touchdowns from any part of the field and he has a couple of things I am looking for,” Shurmur said. “Number one, he can catch the football. That is first and foremost. He has great vision, and then he has what we call in coaching ‘collision balance.’ When he goes through the hole and someone tries to tackle him, he can keep his balance … This is a guy that can do everything.”
Barkley’s Penn State stats are a reminder that he can absolutely explode in any game and that he consistently runs up big numbers, too. He set a school record with a career-high 358 all-purpose yards at Iowa in September (211 rushing, 94 receiving, 53 kickoff return). He averaged 145.7 total yards per game in his three-year Nittany Lions career. He is the only Penn State position player ever with multiple 100-point seasons: 138 in 2017 and 132 in 2016.
Shafnisky, a former Lehigh University quarterback now with the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes, marveled Saturday at the Giants facility watching his good friend take the stage as the Giants’ No. 2 overall pick. Barkley was always athletic, but the potential savior of a landmark NFL franchise? How far he’s come in six years.
“I was two years older, and when Saquon was a sophomore, he looked up to me like crazy,” Shafnisky laughed in a conversation with the Daily News. “He’d always say, ‘I just want to play D-II.’ But there were signs. I threw up a Hail Mary this one time, about six guys went up for it, and he just went up above them all and caught it.”
Barkley then hit a growth spurt and added major muscle going into the Zephyrs’ 2013 season his junior year. And so continued his rise to attracting offers, to verbally committing to Rutgers, to switching to Penn State, to starring in the Big Ten, to convincing the Giants he was the best football player in the entire 2018 NFL Draft. “Now he’s been bringing me along for the ride,” Shafnisky said with a smile, of backing Barkley through this process. S hurmur is here to transform the Giants’ offense. Barkley will be the centerpiece of that effort. And if Barkley’s meteoric rise continues, the Giants’ running game won’t just be the focal point; it could become unstoppable.