Saquon Barkley said the Giants’ exit meetings Monday were “business as usual” despite uncertainty around head coach Joe Judge’s future, Judge telling the team what he wanted them to work on in the offseason.
“Just got to get better all around, every single one of us has to be better and better,” Barkley said. “We know that we have the talent in the locker room. We have the right mindset and the right group of guys and great work ethic, but we've got to get better. We've got to have the results. This is a critical offseason, and we've got to go out there and show that we used our time wisely and get better.”
There really wasn’t much to be optimistic about around the Giants this season as a whole, but to Barkley, the most disappointing aspect is that after being an Eagles Week 17 upset away from having a playoff chance last year, they weren’t able to push through this season’s adversity to get back to that point.
“Last year, we were in a position in the last week to make the playoff; coming back, we have the same team but added key players, so you think the opportunity is going to be better,” Barkley said. “You're hoping for a better season, but it's just the things that you can't control. It's a lot of adversity, a lot of guys banged up with injuries and having to have guys step up and play new roles. I would say that's the biggest thing that's a disappointment because we have a lot of talent to be successful, but we've just got to find a way to win on the field. There's going to be adversity throughout the way, but we've just got to keep moving through it.”
Barkley himself was a key lightning rod, as he struggled coming off his torn ACL and also missed a few games due to a severe high ankle sprain. Still, he tied for the team lead in rushing yards and was second on the team in yards from scrimmage, and he’s looking forward to making his fifth (and possibly final) year in New York a big rebound.
“I'm almost 100 percent sure (I can be better) because the only thing I can focus on is the things that I can control,” Barkley said. “I can control my work ethic. I can control my effort and my attitude this offseason. This offseason is going to be all about getting myself in tip-top shape and getting my body back to the form where I need it to be, so I can be the player that I know I am.”
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The offense as a whole is in the same boat, but alluding to his earlier point about pushing through adversity, Barkley was disappointed that the results didn’t match the talent level.
“As a whole we’ve got to be better; there’s a lot of talent, but it doesn't matter how talented you are if you're not getting the results.
It doesn't matter who you bring in, if we don't go out there and make the plays that we can make, nothing is going to change, to be honest,” he said. “We've got to put it on us, we've got to take that responsibility to have that mindset that whoever we bring in here, obviously they're going to put us in the right positions as players.”
Barkley is confident, though, that Big Blue can do just that.
“I do believe it can be done. I think you see it every year throughout the National Football League, a team that did not do so well the year before and then the next year they're in playoff contention,” he said. “In the offseason as players, we've got to come to work and trust ownership and coaches are going to do the right thing to add key additional pieces that we need for our teams. We're going to get healthier with guys coming back, and we just have to keep working and do what is going to be necessary to happen for us to make us turn it around.”
Oh, and for all the haters who have been all over Saquon, whether it be this year alone of over the last few? He’s not going to let your criticism dictate his mood, but he will do his best to make sure he proves the doubters wrong.
“My mom always told me since I was a kid, no matter if you're doing good or bad, people are going to have something positive to say or something negative to say. I've just got to block it out,” he said. “It's kind of hard to do that here, especially the day we live in with social media. I'm active on social media, so you can go on your phone at night and look at something and it'll pop up. But my mindset is that I’m not going to rely on people that have no impact on the success that I have or have no impact on my life dictate my feelings. At the end of the day, I'm very blessed, playing the sport that I love at the highest level. There are a lot of people that would kill to be in my position, so I'm going to take advantage of that opportunity that God blessed me with and keep working. For everyone that is outside my world, whether you write or say something positive or mostly something negative often about me, just make sure you guys stay on that side of the table when things turn around.”
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