While Joe Schoen spoke with reporters on Wednesday to announce Daniel Jones’ new contract extension, the discussion unsurprisingly turned to the fate of Saquon Barkley, who was given the non-exclusive franchise tag as a result of Jones’ four-year, $160 million deal.
“I’m gonna talk to Saquon today,” Schoen said. “I talked to him yesterday before we put the franchise tag on him…we’re gonna continue to negotiate. We love Saquon. He’s a good teammate, a captain, and a hell of a player.
“Right now he’s under the franchise tag. As we build the team and continue with our offseason plan, we’ll do what’s best for the team. We’re still mapping that out.”
Schoen and the Giants worked with Barkley since the bye week this past season to try and agree on a long-term deal, but the two sides were reportedly not close during those initial discussions, and negotiations stalled shortly before Tuesday’s deadline. As a result, Barkley will play next season under the tag unless he agrees to a deal with another team (unlikely since that team would have to forfeit two first-round draft picks), or signs a long-term deal with New York.
“That’s negotiations,” Schoen said. “We had some deals out there. We tried to get a deal done with him and his representatives, and we couldn’t. And I think both parties knew at the end of the day that this was an option.”
Barkley, the Giants homegrown star who returned to being a 1,000-yard rusher this past season, was hoping to be rewarded with a nice payday, but that will have to wait after his teammate signed a big deal.
“I think if he’s frustrated I can understand some of that, and we can be frustrated as well that we weren’t able to get a deal done,” Schoen said. “But I love Saquon, he’s a good player, he’s gonna be a part of this team going forward. And we’ll see where it goes from here.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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