AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET!
Barkley tells News he has another level
“They brought you in here for a reason, and you have to get better.” – Saquon Barkley, Nov. 18, 2018
Saquon Barkley scoured the film of his 152-yard, three-touchdown tour de force over the Buccaneers on Sunday and said he didn’t bend enough at his hips.
Seriously. Barkley told the Daily News on Monday that his posture possibly cost him yards at the end of his increasingly effective “dirty” runs through traffic, which he frequently took to the final tackler but just couldn’t quite break to daylight.
“I’m not bending at my hips. I’m bending at my waist,” Barkley, 21, said in the Giants’ locker room, twisting his body to demonstrate how he too often was hunching, not bending, and therefore not optimizing his famed Sa-quads. “When you’re running through smoke or through a crowded area and trying to get out, I’m running through arm tackles and carrying them five, six, seven (yards). Now if I want to take it to another level, that next level could be breaking that and taking it 60, taking it 70.
“I’m running low, but if I bend at the hips, I’ll have more power and can be more explosive,” Barkley added. “Think about when you squat: You bend at your hips. You’re not bending at your waist.”
Too ‘Inside Football’ for you? Well, that’s what the Giants’ franchise running back is thinking about: the next correction that will give him an edge; the idea that he still isn’t good enough.
Barkley faces a unique pressure as the Giants’ No. 2 overall pick: to be consistently great, and then to be better than that, every week. The rookie’s answer to that is to bury himself in the details and the coaching.
But he’s aware of the outlandish expectations for his impact, and that’s why he said on Sunday that he knows the Giants “brought (me) in here for a reason.” Because he knows he is expected to revive the offense and the franchise, and Barkley told the News on Monday that he has resolved to turn it up and rise to meet that challenge.
“I do believe there’s a level I can take it to, another level I can take it to, another level that this team can take it to,” Barkley said with confidence. “And we’re kind of getting on that, we’re kind of building on that … And we’ve got to take it to another level this week.”
Another level Barkley can take his game to? Past being one of only six players in NFL history to have at least 1,200 yards from scrimmage in his first 10 games? Scary to think about.
But enough big picture talk. Back to the film.
Take something as simple as a handoff exchange.
Barkley said a key adjustment he made going into the Bucs game was to speed up his “pace” through the exchange with the quarterback, or “mesh” to reach the line of scrimmage quicker and hit the hole. It worked. “For example, Le’Veon (Bell), everyone knows his style, he has a more patient type of pace going through the
mesh, and other backs are faster,” Barkley said. “And this week, Coach (Pat Shurmur) challenged me to get dirtier with the runs … and get those three and four yard runs. And I just figured if I quickened up my pace through the mesh, getting to the line of scrimmage faster than what I’ve normally been doing, it would help things develop a lot quicker.”
Barkley’s adjustments and growth extend beyond the film room, too.
Shurmur essentially scolded Barkley – “a little seminar,” the coach called it – after the rookie back slipped all over San Francisco’s field in Week 10 because he wasn’t wearing the correct cleats. Barkley is too important a player to not have such details figured out by game time.
Barkley could have resented Shurmur’s talking-to, but he handled the criticism constructively. He owned up that he has to “be a better pro” than to overlook such a key element. He said “the only person I could blame there is myself.”
“I was brought here for a reason, but I’m still adjusting to the NFL,” Barkley said of being a coachable star. “And when your coach challenges you, you’ve got to take it to heart. Some people shy away from it or take it personal(ly) like, ‘Oh, why is he saying this about me?’ I didn’t take it like that at all. I took it as a challenge and wanted to come out and show him what he’s got.”
As Barkley tries to carry the Giants (3-7) out of irrelevance, this coming Sunday’s game in Philadelphia presents another interesting wrinkle in his early journey: Barkley was raised in Coplay, Pa., near Allentown, not 80 miles north of Lincoln Financial Field. That is, predominantly, Eagles country.
Barkley shook his head vigorously Monday when asked if he’d ever attended a game there as a fan. He has been there only once, and it was forgettable. He played sparingly as a Penn State freshman in a 27-10 loss to Temple on Sept. 5, 2015, the Owls’ first win over the Nittany Lions since 1941.
“Growing up in Pennsylvania, knowing about Eagles fans, I know that they’re different, let’s put it that way,” Barkley said with a smirk. “That’s the best word I can kind of use for them.”
He joked that “hopefully” his somewhat-local roots will buy him some understanding, “but I do not expect that whatsoever.” Many of his friends, at least, will root for both him and his opponent.
“My close friends, there are still some Eagles fans, but they’ll say they’re Eagles fans but they’re Barkley fans, (too),” he said. “So they’ll wear a Saquon jersey but they’ll be Eagles fans still. And just coming from Penn State, a lot of those people I’ll see on social media they’ll say, ‘It kills me to root for you, but I still do ’cause you’re a Pa. guy.’ So it’s pretty cool to see that.”