Barkley says he can return even stronger: ‘ NO DOUBT’
Explosive Giants back Saquon Barkley has no doubt he can be as good or even better once his surgically repaired right knee heals. “No doubt in my mind,” Barkley said Thursday morning. “The likelihood of me coming back to 100%, what they’re saying is it’s kind of on how you attack it. Sometimes they say when you do ACL reconstruction, your ACL becomes 10 times stronger, to be honest.”
Barkley, 23, isn’t able to attack it yet, since his repaired meniscus requires rest before he goes to work on rehabbing his ACL, meniscus and the entire knee. But he’s back in New Jersey for now at least, and he’s eager to make progress for a big 2021.
Barkley waited 40 days after his Week 2 injury on Sept. 20 to have the surgery on Oct. 30 with Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles. He waited so the swelling in his strained MCL could go down and he could strengthen the knee. The surgery was to repair a torn ACL and a partially torn meniscus.
On Thursday, Barkley spoke with local Giants media via Zoom in his first interview since he tore up his knee.
Here are some more highlights from Thursday’s call:
● On whether the injury changes Barkley’s contract situation entering year four of his rookie deal:
“Don’t really focus on it. Not really focused on money or anything right now. I’m really focusing on trying to come in every day and be 1% better. So whenever that day is, I can come back in and be ready for my team.”
● On the surgery: “They didn’t do an MCL repair. They were able to save my meniscus. My MCL healed on its own. You’ve got to be smart with the first six, seven weeks because of the meniscus repair, which I’m gonna continue to be smart with. So I’m just gonna take it day by day.” Saving the meniscus meant they didn’t have to take the meniscus out; they just sewed it back together. “Which is a really good thing to be honest,” he added.
“It’s just smarter to let the MCL heal itself and get sticky, so I wasn’t in no rush. Have a great medical staff and team here and obviously working with Dr. ElAttrache in L.A. all together came with the idea that I should wait it out, it would be better for me in the long run, and that’s what we did.”
● On whether he went to dark places after the injury:
“I think so far I’ve been doing pretty well, but I imagine there’s gonna be some more dark places coming up. I would say really probably the darkest time for me was right when it happened. Even though it wasn’t diagnosed, I kinda had a feeling what happened. And it kind of brings you to tears. It sucked in that moment. I knew what I wanted to help this team do this year, and I knew that was all taken away. But you’ve kinda got to suck it up. You can’t cry about it too long. You’ve got to move on. Everything happens for a reason. You’ve got to have that mindset.”
● On Wayne Gallman and the Giants’ strong running game:
“Wayne. Wayne Train. So proud
of him. He’s playing amazing. All those guys: Alfred (Morris), EP (Eli Penny), the offensive line. All of them.”
● On why he chose Dr. ElAttrache over a Giants team doctor:
“With ElAttrache and (head Giants team physician/orthopedics) Dr. (Scott) Rodeo, I’m very blessed to be in a position where I can pick from the top in the world. So it wasn’t like I like this one’s better or that one’s better. It was just with my agent Kim (Miale of RocNation) and my manager, Ken, what we think we should do. Obviously I think you guys know I do train in L.A. for the offseason. Most of the time I’m out there. So that did come into play, too.”
Barkley said he was in Los Angeles at first following his surgery and “I was supposed to stay out there for a month, but I kinda just missed it (here).”
Barkley said he spoke for a long time on the day before the surgery with current Lions running back Adrian Peterson. Peterson put Barkley in contact with his trainer, and Barkley said he expects they’ll talk more, since Peterson won an MVP award in 2012 after tearing his ACL in 2011.
Asked if he has a target date for getting back to 100%, Barkley said: “No, no target date in mind. Just coming in every single day and trying to be 1% better.”