The New York Giants didn’t deal operating again Saquon Barkley on the 2023 commerce deadline regardless of sporting a 2-6 report on the time. That call got here again to hang-out them when Barkley inked a long-term cope with the Philadelphia Eagles on the onset of free company.
The Giants finally misplaced Barkley and bought nothing in return.
Though they acknowledged the opportunity of being caught flat-footed, Giants co-owner John Mara says they have been nonetheless trying to compete on the time in order that they gambled on retaining Barkley.
“I hate buying and selling guys proper on the commerce deadline as a result of it nearly alerts that you simply’re giving up on the season,” Mara stated this week on the Annual League Assembly, through the New York Day by day Information. “And Saquon, I used to be nonetheless hoping to have the ability to signal him in some unspecified time in the future. It’s unlucky we weren’t capable of do it.”
Though Mara says they weren’t giving up on the season, that didn’t cease basic supervisor Joe Schoen from buying and selling defensive lineman Leonard Williams to the Seattle Seahawks.
Within the eyes of Schoen, Barkley was extra precious offensively than Williams was defensively.
“(Barkley) was one in every of our higher offensive gamers, and we weren’t giving up,” Schoen stated. “We nonetheless needed him to go on the market and carry out for us . . . When (Daniel Jones) was getting back from the neck damage, we needed to ensure they might go on the market and function. I believe Saquon was a giant a part of that at the moment.”
Mara needed Schoen to discover a technique to make it work however finally, Barkley departed. The Giants by no means even made him a contract provide.
“That was type of an ongoing dialogue by way of the yr that it might come to this, they usually knew my emotions that I hoped it didn’t come to this,” Mara stated. “However on the finish of the day, I do know typically each every so often I learn, ‘Oh, he’s meddling, he’s meddling.’ No. We’ve run our group the identical approach for a lot of, a few years.”
That additionally means, opposite to fashionable perception, that the four-year contract given to Jones was the choice of Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll.