Saquon Barkley’s Offseason Will Be Running Back Market’s Latest Landmark

New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen answered a handful of questions regarding the franchise’s ongoing contract talks with running back Saquon Barkley across his 15 or so minutes at the podium during last week’s NFL scouting combine, but his final words on the subject may have been the most revealing.

Do the Giants, Schoen was asked directly, view negotiations more through Barkley’s value from a financial sense, or for what he—a team captain and fan favorite—means to the franchise where he was drafted No. 2 overall in 2018? No hesitation.

“Running back market value,” Schoen said before departing the stage.

Now that the Giants opted not to place the franchise tag on their star running back for the second year in a row, Barkley and the rest of the NFL are about to truly find out what that value is.

The 27-year-old, for the first time in his professional career—after four years on a rookie deal, a fifth-year option and one spent as a franchise player—is set to gauge interest on the open market when free agency kicks off next week. Barkley made it to Tuesday’s deadline without being tagged, which would have been worth $12.1 million for him. Last year, even earlier in the stages of still unsuccessful efforts to find common ground, he made $10.1 million on an adjusted tag.

Schoen was adamant ahead of last season’s trade deadline amid a disappointing year that Barkley was not available. At the combine, he admitted that the franchise tag wasn’t “off the table” as an effort to retain him again after the salary cap for 2024 came in higher than expected. That, a not-so-thrilled Barkley has said, wasn’t his preferred route. And he avoided it.

“They did it last year,” Barkley said after the season of potentially playing under the tag again, according to ESPN. “I’m numb to it.”

Newsweek contacted representatives for Barkley via email Wednesday seeking further comment.

It’s clear the Giants didn’t want to reward the two-time Pro Bowler with a top-tier running back contract he seems to be seeking, though what remains to be seen is if anyone else will. In a crowded free agent market at an undervalued position that last year reached a boiling point, a positive answer may be hard for Barkley to find.

Outcries from last offseason—when prominent running backs were tagged, struggled to reach long-term agreements or had a hard time in free agency—are still fresh. Perhaps the most memorable of them all was a public back-and-forth between Jonathan Taylor and the Indianapolis Colts, which did eventually lead to the first multiyear deal worth more than $10 million annually at the position since Nick Chubb’s.

But what will the future hold for Barkley?

The Penn State product added another 288 touches to his running back odometer last season. After a comeback 2022 campaign in which Barkley produced numbers not seen since his rookie year, which helped the G-Men reach the postseason, his production dipped (1,242 yards and 10 touchdowns from scrimmage) in 2023 behind a disastrous offensive line.

Plus, he missed three games with an ankle injury in a modern league that loves any excuse to go younger and cheaper at running back (the Chiefs winning back-to-back Super Bowls with a seventh-rounder in the backfield, for example).

All this is just to say that Barkley, perhaps the best running back available league-wide, may have his challenges securing a lucrative deal, particularly in what Schoen referred to at the combine as a “saturated” running back market. Other accomplished veterans—including Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs and Austin Ekeler—are also available. How will the supply of backfield options meet the league’s apparent diminishing demand for their services?

ESPN reported that the Giants do not see the value in paying a running back $10 million a year. The network cited the belief of executives around the league that Barkley will draw an annual salary in the $8 million to $10 million range. By comparison, The Athletic mentioned one executive saying Barkley will draw somewhere around $8 million to $10 million per year, though perhaps up to $12 million. One agent, ESPN said, suggested Barkley could draw $12 million to $14 million per season based on his accomplishments and potential on a more complete team—figures believed to be closer in line with the $24ish-million guaranteed ESPN said he would have gotten in a deal with the Giants last year.

Barkley is already being tied to the Texans or Cowboys or any other running back-needy team. And the door is still open for a potential return to the Giants. Schoen said at the combine that he thinks “the world” of Barkley and believes he can still play at a high level, while the running back has expressed an interest in being a Giant for his entire career.

Since contract talks with New York stalled, Barkley seems to be getting what he wanted—a chance to test the free agency waters. But plenty of what-ifs remain. Among them is whether Barkley changes recent financial struggles veteran running backs have faced, or if he will just be the latest victim of an ongoing trend.

“When I was a kid, I collected baseball cards, and every month I’d buy the Beckett Card [Price Guide],” Cardinals GM Monti Ossenfort said last week at the combine, via The Athletic. “And I’d open it up and take it to my dad and say, ‘Oh, I got this card, and it’s worth this much.’ And my dad’s response was, ‘No, it’s worth whatever somebody’s willing to pay you for it.’

“Unfortunately, that’s a little what the free agency market is, whether it’s running backs or any position. You’ve got to wait and see how the market plays out.”