THE GIANTS’ SAQUONDARY
Barkley back, but Big Blue left trying to figure out how to get the most of him and wondering if he’ll ever be himself again
Every positive medical test result, every rehabilitation milestone, every private opinion offered by Saquon Barkley told the Giants he was ready to go.
In fact, the mounting evidence in the left-hand column of a pros and cons list on whether to play Barkley at the start of this season mostly was countered by just one name: Terrell Davis.
Giants general manager Dave Gettleman was a Broncos scout when Davis burst onto the scene with a brilliant four-year start, and he still had connections to the organization when the running back tore both his ACL and MCL in his right knee. Davis hurried back for the 2000 seasonopener, but missed 31 of the next 47 games over the final three seasons of a Hall of Fame career cut short by injuries to both knees and the lack of a long-term view.
The cautionary tale was whispered around the Giants facility this offseason, as consideration was given to holding out Barkley for the first two games — played in a five-day span — and until after the one-year anniversary of the game in which he suffered a torn ACL, strained MCL and partially torn meniscus in his right knee. Ultimately, the combination of encouraging factors, including Barkley’s strong drive, put him on the field for Week 1 — and Davis was watching when Barkley caught a pass in space against the Broncos.
“He fell down, and I empathized: That’s unlike him. Saquon would’ve n e v e r fallen down,” Davis told The Post. “I remember going to my trainers and saying there was a bit of a lag between what I wanted to do and my body responding to it. It was very slight, but it was on my mind.
“I believe he’s in that phase where he is improving, but he’s not yet where he used to be. That’s going to take some time. As fans, we assume if Saquon is on the field, then he needs to be the Saquon he used to be.”
Barkley, 24, cultivated a superhero’s image by growing tree-trunk quads, hurdling or bulldozing or outrunning defenders, and selling a Nike-branded logo that looks like Superman’s
‘S.’ But great success and labels are his enemy as fans panic that the end results are not the same after a small sample size.
“People probably do expect me to come out here and jump over people and do crazy things,”
Barkley said. “Obviously I would love to do that, too. But at the end of the day I am human.” Barkley is running, cutting and stutterstepping on his surgically repaired knee, but he is averaging just 3.4 yards per carry, with one touchdown, after three games. Only seven of his 39 carries have gone for more than five yards, but five of those were last week, as he progressed.
So, is this just expected rust on the climb back to top form? Are pedestrian numbers his new normal? Or are other factors, such as playcalling, blocking and running style, behind his slow start? It depends on who you ask. “He didn’t lose that first-step burst,” said former Pro
Bowl linebacker Jonathan Vilma, Fox’s booth analyst on the Giants’ game last week and again this week. “He does not look like he is favoring his knee. But he hasn’t played in a while and he has to get re-used to the speed of the game and the defenses. It’s not anything out of the ordinary. It’s just that they are 0-3, so everyone is trying to figure it out.”
The mental, the physical
Barkley’s injury happened Sept. 20, 2020, but he delayed knee surgery until Halloween, as a way of healing the MCL. That changed the recovery timetable. Browns receiver Odell Beckham Jr. — Barkley’s close friend and former teammate — had his ACL reconstruction 10 days later and didn’t return until last week.
“It’s a fallacy to say he had an early-season injury. You have to judge him as a Week 8 ACL injury,” said Dr. David Chao, the former Chargers team physician who runs ProFootballDoc.com. “The most realistic thing you can hope for is somewhere in the second half of the season he becomes closer to being Saquon. Realistically, 2022 is when you would hope to have ‘Superman.’ The second year back is always a better year back.”
The Giants’ plan to ease Barkley back or to lighten his workload was scrapped under the urgency of another season about to be lost too soon. He played 85 percent of the offensive snaps the past two weeks, and the Giants are asking him to alter his running style to become more of a north-south power back than a slasher.
“He had a really significant injury last year,” offensive coordinator Jaosn Garrett said, “and how hard he worked to come back and play as much as he has early in the season has been really, really impressive.”
Giants radio analyst Carl Banks, a former Pro Bowl linebacker, said on WFAN that a “blunt conversation” is needed to tell Barkley he is making it too easy for defenses by not initiating collisions.