Saquon Barkley wasn’t necessarily 100 percent for most of the year, especially after the high ankle sprain that cost him a few games in the middle of the season.
But, Barkley found a way to tie for the Giants’ team lead in rushing yards and was second in total yards from scrimmage, making him somewhat of a bright spot in a very dark year for the offense.
Still, it could’ve been better, and he says that starts with him.
“I probably expected a better season for myself. Just as an individual, you want to be better for your team, you want to be better. It just didn't go that way,” Barkley said after Sunday’s season-ending loss. “Had a little bit more adversity and little stuff down the road that kind of set me off. The results may not have been what I wanted them to be, but I had to endure the process and go through the process and fight through that. I know that that's going to make me a better player in the future.”
Superlatives aside, Barkley has heard the whispers all year that he’s a bit of a bust, or he peaked as a rookie, or he’s not the back everyone expected out of a former No. 2 pick. With four seasons down and at least one more to go in Big Blue, however, Saquon can only look to the future.
“I know everyone’s going to have their opinions about the season I had, but like I said, I know the type of player I am, the type of player I'm going to be,” he said. “I know the work ethic that I'm going to have in this offseason and get my body back into the shape that I need it to be in the position I need to be to go out there and be the player that I know I am.”
And he won’t use the ankle, or the torn ACL he suffered last season, or any other bumps and bruises as an excuse for what happened in the past.
“That doesn't matter. Everyone's banged up, dealing with something; this is the National Football League,” he said. “My ankle was a little setback, but it is what it is, and nothing I think that needs to be addressed. Sometimes your body just needs time to relax and breathe and when stuff like that happens through the NFL season, you don't really get that time.
That's what it is.”
Barkley isn’t sure how much time he’ll take off now that the season is over, joking that his suggestion of “one week” was laughed at, but he’ll trust the team medical staff to develop a plan for him.
“I told the trainers one week and they laughed at me and told me I needed to take a little bit more time than that, so, just got to trust the trainers,” Barkley smiled. “We have an unbelievable strength staff here and unbelievable trainers outside the building that I work with personally. Probably this week, going to sit down and develop a game plan about what I'm going to do to get my body right.”
One thing he knows that starts with, though, is being able to have a “normal” offseason, something he wasn’t necessarily able to do last year as he was still rehabbing his ACL injury.
“Go back to the basics. I could train a little different this offseason than I did last season just with rehabbing. You're rehabbing a whole new reconstruction, so that's different training, so I don't have to do that training,” Barkley said. “I'm not going to change my training, I'm going to get back to hitting the weights, hitting heavy, being explosive, getting back to the type of running regimen that I like to do and get myself ready for the season.”
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