The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Giants must ponder Barkley’s value
Melvin Gordon’s holdout with the Chargers is a reminder that in three years tops, the Giants will need to decide whether to pay serious money to a running back, too.
Not that they don’t already. Drafting Saquon Barkley No. 2 overall last spring put Big Blue on the hook in 2019 for the NFL’s sixth highest average annual RB contract value ($7.7 million), the eighthhighest RB salary cap hit for this season ($7.08 million), and the fourthmost total guaranteed money ($31.1 million) in an RB contract, per overthecap.com. And that’s just this year.
The Giants face a decision in the notsodistant future of how big a contract extension to throw at Barkley, at a position that continues to be devalued in a league where the pass is now king.
Dave Gettleman put himself in this position to have to pay Barkley bigtime in 202021, though, by valuing Barkley so highly on his rookie contract. So the Giants are on a collision course with the dilemma to double down on a star running back as their bell cow.
Gordon, 26, who is threatening to demand a trade if not properly compensated with a new deal, is only the latest example of a No. 1 running back having to scratch and claw for what he believes he is worth.
Gordon, a former firstround pick like Barkley (No. 15 overall, 2015), feels disrespected and is leveraging his value entering the fifth and final year of his rookie contract.
Running backs take a beating and historically have short shelf lives, so the contract negotiation at the end of their rookie deals is critical. It could be their last.
Gordon and Barkley are different players, and every RB situation is different. Gordon, for example, has an injury history. He’s
missed at least two games in three of his four NFL seasons.
The Jets’ Le’Veon Bell, 27, who carries the fourthhighest RB cap hit in 2019 ($8.9 million), is an interesting case study looking ahead to Barkley’s next deal.
Bell cost himself money by sitting out the entire 2018 season seeking a new contract outside of Pittsburgh, signing a fouryear, $52.5 million contract with the Jets that came in under the Steelers’ best offer and didn’t make up the money he’d forfeited by sitting out.
On the other hand, Bell garnered a fiveyear, $70 million offer from the Steelers and still made money from the Jets at age 27. And he did this despite issues off the field and in the locker room, and a 2015 season cut short to six games by a knee injury.
The comparable element of Bell’s career to Barkley’s expected trajectory, though, is his workload.
Bell had an astounding 1,541 touches in five seasons with the Steelers, including 1,229 rushes and 312 receptions, despite missing 18 games. If Barkley, 22, were to stay on his rookie year pace of 352 touches annually, he’d have 1,760 total after five NFL seasons.
And if his production remained even slightly similar to his rookie year and the Giants started winning again, then Barkley would have every right to ask for the moon on his second deal.
Barkley, of course, arguably could make the decision for the Giants, then, with his play and durability.
He is a marketable face of franchise type whom they drafted in large part anticipating a lack of any offfield drama. So if he performs and stays healthy and behaves, the Giants would pay.
After all, they gave skill player Odell Beckham Jr. a fiveyear, $90 million extension despite just one playoff appearance, tons of team losing and offfield drama, and then traded him only months into the contract to eat a $16 million 2019 dead cap hit.
So obviously, with the NFL’s salary cap constantly rising to boot, Barkley would have a convincing argument for deserving more than the Giants even wanted to fork over.
There are situations for Barkley to monitor even closer than Gordon’s, too.
Ezekiel Elliott, the Cowboys’ fourth overall pick in 2016 who turns 24 this month, is inching towards his payday with Dallas. He has an offfield history, including a sixgame suspension in 2017 for alleged domestic violence, but his high draft slot, production and workload (354 and 381 touches in his two full seasons) make him a key case study for the Barkley camp.
There are cautionary tales for the Giants, also, however, like the Rams’ fouryear, $57.5 million contract extension to Todd Gurley in 2018. Gurley, the 10th overall pick in 2015, has been the focal point of an offense on the one hand that has lit the league on fire in recent years.
On the other hand, Gurley’s ailing knee suddenly makes the contract look like a questionable investment by the organization.
Plus, it doesn’t help run
ning backs seeking top dollar when studs like Bell and Gurley get replaced last season by rookie James Conner and veteran C.J. Anderson, respectively, and in both instances the Steelers’ and Rams’ run games were more productive.
Gurley carries the secondhighest cap hit among NFL RB’s in 2019 ($9.2 million). The highest, Arizona’s David Johnson ($9.75 million), is a great player but one who suffered a devastating knee injury in 2016 and whose team had the first overall pick in April.
And put whatever stock in this stat that you’d like, but in 2018, only two of the 10 teams with the highest positional spending on running backs made the playoffs, per overthecap.com.
They were the Super Bowl representatives: the Rams ($9 million, fourth), coached by the game’s hottest offensive mind in Sean McVay; and the Patriots ($7.8 million, ninth), led by arguably the greatest NFL coach of all time.
The Giants were third at $11.3 million. They are projected ninth ($10.4 million) at the moment for 2019. And as long as Barkley is on the roster, they will be spending back at running back.
The question is how big they’ll spend on him in a few years, if their philosophy changes, or if Barkley proves so special that paying him won’t be as much of a dilemma as a wellearned and foregone conclusion.