The New York Giants staged one of the best comebacks in franchise history in Arizona, but they paid the price for it. Star running back Saquon Barkley suffered an ankle injury late in the Giants’ 31-28 win on Sunday.
WFAN’s Shaun Morash of the Audacy original podcast “One Giant Step” explained why Barkley’s injury shouldn’t devastate the Giants in the coming weeks.
“Is it a blow to the Giants? Absolutely. He’s a dynamic playmaker, one of the best running backs in football. It’d be a blow to any team,” Morash said (12:44 in player above). “However, you invested in Daniel Jones. You invested in adding speed like Darren Waller and Jalin Hyatt of which we saw in the second half.”
Hyatt caught two passes – one for 58 yards and one for 31 yards – to lead the Giants with 89 yards receiving. Waller caught six of eight targets for a total of 76 yards.
Morash acknowledged that a lot of that damage came from play action, which teams have to respect more with Barkley in the backfield. Nevertheless, the Giants can’t use Barkley’s injury as an excuse.
“This team better be at a point offensively where while the loss of Saquon absolutely hurts, it shouldn’t devastate them,” he continued. “Granted, I wasn’t expecting them to beat the 49ers anyway … but if he’s got to miss the Seattle game and if it comes down to the Miami game – those are still really tough games.
“The reason you lose those games, in my opinion, at this point if you weren’t ready to give Saquon a long-term deal can’t be because Saquon Barkley isn’t out there.”
The Giants will piece things together at running back in the interim with Matt Breida, Gary Brightwell, and Eric Gray all in the mix for carries.