THE MYSTERY MAN

Saquon’s status for Week 1 still up in air

All eyes have been on Saquon Barkley since the start of training camp.

The goal all along has been for the Giants running back, whose 2020 season was ruined when he tore the ACL in his right knee in Week 2, to be ready for Sunday’s season opener against the Broncos at MetLife Stadium.

We’re four days away from that game, and no one associated with the Giants is saying whether Barkley will play or not — despite the fact he’s been participating in team drills in practice since last Thursday.

Before Wednesday’s practice, after which the team revealed in its injury report that Barkley was “limited,’’ head coach Joe Judge was predictably vague when asked about him.

“A large degree of what I want to see is kind of how he responds to some contact,’’ Judge said. “I want to see how he puts together three straight days of work as well. There’s a big part in just watching our players’ bodies respond. He’s no different than a lot of other guys we have right now coming off of injury that we’re going to have to see if these next three days, in terms of what they can handle by load and how we think their bodies are going to respond going into Sunday.

“We got to make the best decision for everybody’s health going into the game. Saquon’s no different than that, so we’re taking that lens of player safety as we go ahead and look at all these guys for the opener.’’

Judge said he’s “seen a lot of improvement’’ in Barkley, but he’s not ready to make a declaration about Sunday, even though the smart money has Barkley playing against the Broncos.

“When you come off an injury like this, that’s obviously a significant injury, there’s a confidence level that a lot of people go through,’’ Judge said. “I was obviously never an explosive athlete myself, but I’ve had similar injuries that I can tell you that you’ve got to get over that wall of confidence.

“I’ve seen Saquon push through that with how he works and I think the confidence comes from what you demonstrate through your rehab and then build into the team as you get it to go on with them. I’ve seen him improve his movement skills, I’ve seen his football conditioning really improve.

“As he got into just playing football with us towards the tail end of training camp and

through these last couple of weeks, that’s probably been a daily increase and improvement for him and a lot of that’s just natural. You’re out of football for that length of time, you got to get back into the movements, the execution of plays, there’s a lot of things that go into that, but I have seen him progress on a daily basis. I’m very pleased.’’

Judge insisted that he wants “to make sure we make the best decisions for him long term; I can’t stress that enough.’’

Judge, too, said the short turnaround from Sunday’s opener to the team’s Thursday night game in Washington doesn’t play into his decision about whether to play Barkley on Sunday.

“We kind of make it game by game,’’ he said.

Giants quarterback Daniel Jones said he thought Barkley has looked “great’’ in practice.

Does he look as good as he did before he was injured?

That’s the $64,000 question that no one wants to answer. Clearly every Giants player has taken heed to the memo from management that they reveal nothing about anything to reporters.

“When he’s ready to go, it’ll be big to have him back,’’ Jones said. “He’s a leader on this team and someone that everyone looks to and listens to, so he will definitely help us out. We’ll see what happens.’’

One of the themes to Judge’s plan with Barkley as it relates to deciding on when he’s ready to return to a game has been getting him hit a few times in practices to acclimate him to game conditions.

“We’re going to keep trying to get him as ready as possible on the defensive side of the ball,’’ safety Jabrill Peppers said after practice. “We can’t wait to get him back, absolutely. It’s up to us [on defense] to make sure that when he’s ready to go back out there, he’s ready to go back out there. We’ve got to bang him up a little bit, go after the ball just to get some contact on his body.’’

Then Peppers unwittingly delivered the most honest assessment of anyone regarding Barkley when he was asked about a hit he had on Barkley in last Thursday’s practice, believed to be the first true hit on him since his return to team drills.

“He’s not 100 percent, so I don’t really take too much in it,’’ Peppers said, shrugging it off. “We’ll see how he’s feeling now later in the year.’’

The Giants, of course, hope he’s in uniform Sunday and feeling frisky.