Barkley: I can be best RB ever
Saquon Barkley, the typically humble Giants star running back, is ready to publicly declare how great he thinks he can be.
“I believe that I can be the best running back to ever play the game,” Barkley said, reluctantly but confidently, in Bleacher Report’s revealing ‘Take It There with Taylor Rooks’ interview with Barkley released Wednesday.
Barkley, 22, is not one to pound his chest. He opened up to Rooks, however, showing his affable side but also his competitive fire in an interview conducted in Los Angeles, where he has worked out most of this offseason.
Ex-teammate Jonathan Stewart had been the first to go on record months ago that Barkley could be an all-time great, and Barkley now admits he agrees. He first deflected the question, but Rooks pressed, is Stewart right?
“Yes, I believe so,” Barkley said with a smirk, before setting the bar as the best ever.
Barkley doesn’t want to come off too brash. Later, he said he wasn’t just trying to prove people right coming out of college, “but also wrong, because I’m better than what they say.”
But he reflexively caught him.
“Eh, I’m not,” he said. “I am but …” Then he looked at the camera.
“Do not that put that on there,” he said wagging his finger.
No worries, Saquon. The secret’s out: You believe in yourself.
Barkley’s comments on the Odell Beckham trade also were telling.
“It’s sad to see him go,” Barkley said. “Every time people come ask me how you feel about Odell? Obviously that’s my boy. I’m upset. Like, I don’t think anyone’s gonna sit out here and say, ‘Oh, we’re happy Odell got traded.’ But at the same (time), it’s a business and we guys continue to work.”
Barkley said after Beckham’s trade, “we hung out” and “it didn’t feel real,” echoing comments Beckham made at his introductory press conference about seeing Barkley and Sterling Shepard after becoming a Cleveland Brown.
“It was like dang, he walked in with a Cleveland shirt as soon he’s done working out,” Barkley recalled. “And I was like, ‘Dang, you’re over here in a Cleveland shirt already.’ You never know. One day, hopefully we can compete in the Super Bowl.”
Barkley is good friends with Browns QB Baker Mayfield and even vacationed with him and Shepard this offseason. Rooks asked him if he felt left out with Mayfield and OBJ on the same team.
“No, I do not feel left out at all,” Barkley said. “I’m happy for those guys.”