Saquon Barkley got a huge endorsement Sunday for a return to Big Blue from one of the Giants’ old NFC East rivals: Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith.
“If they don’t bring him back, shame on them,” Emmitt Smith told the Daily News’ Stefan Bondy at the Super Bowl. “Daniel Jones cannot be Daniel Jones without Saquon. And that team cannot be what it is without Saquon doing what he did this year. What you saw is a guy that’s healthy can do a lot of great things. It would be foolish of the Giants to let Saquon go.”
Smith also said that Saquon “does more for the Giants than people realize,” and “just his presence on the field makes the defense do certain things.”
Barkley’s 2022 was his best season since his rookie year, as he was named to the Pro Bowl and had a career-high 1,312 rushing yards to help the Giants reach the playoffs for the first time since 2016. He then scored twice in the Wild Card Round win over Minnesota.
Giants GM Joe Schoen has said the team would love to have Barkley back and they have been working on a deal, but it also seems that Big Blue has a number in mind where they would be comfortable walking away from Saquon, perhaps as a function of the precedent of second contracts for running backs often ending up as albatrosses.
Smith, though, thinks the idea of lowballing Saquon, and the decline in cash for running backs in general, is because of something bigger than on-field play.
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“It’s by design. It’s a marketing ploy behind it to convince everybody that that position is not as valuable as it should be, or as it once used to be,” Smith told Bondy. “I think it’s a shame they’re reducing the value [of running backs] and pushing it out to the wide receivers and the cornerbacks and the quarterbacks. And this is all about fantasy football and the points that you’re gaining in fantasy football. Period. The league wants to score more ratings, so you got quarterbacks passing the ball left and right. You got all the pass interference plays that’s happening and moving the ball down the field so you can score points. And it’s all for the fantasy football lovers.”
An interesting take, as interesting as the Saquon and Daniel Jones saga itself, perhaps.
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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