New York Giants legends chime in on Saquon Barkley situation

New York Giants fans want the Saquon Barkley situation to end amicably and equitably for all parties — and it still may.

The star running back will stage his holdout and then likely report to the team in time for the 2023 regular season. He won’t, however, be any wealthier than he was when it began. Whether or not he will harbor any ill feelings towards the Giants going forward remains to be seen.

Two Giants Ring of Honorees — two-time Super Bowl champions Ottis Anderson and Carl Banks — both weighed-in on the Barkley affair this week and added some level-headed perspectives to the situation.

Anderson told the New York Post that Barkley only has himself to blame for how things unfolded. He said that Barkley should have pulled the trigger on the offer the Giants made him last fall (approximately $12-14 million per annum) instead of trying to squeeze more out of them.

Instead, he’ll be forced to play on the franchise-tag tender price of $10.1 million this year.

“I get where Barkley feels he’s at the point in his career where he wants that one big check, that one big contract, because everybody wants that, because you’re not sure you’re gonna get another one,’’ Anderson said. “Two years from now, he’ll be in his seventh year, and that’s when most teams let go of running backs. I wish him luck, but management is looking at it totally differently than how Barkley is looking at it.

“Management is saying you were great your rookie year, then you had two years or three years in between where you were injured and then you had a great year last year,” he continued. “So they’re looking at it out of five years you only had three good years.’’

Banks, speaking on his podcast with radio partner, Bob Papa, advised the Giants running back to take his medicine and make the best of it, even telling him to hire a branding expert to seek opportunities outside of football in the New York market to make the lost revenue he “left on the table.”

“Don’t be a principled fool,” Banks tweeted.

#newpod My message to #26.. “Don’t be a Principled Fool” #tellafriendtotellafriend
@BleavNetwork 👇🏾 https://t.co/vZOExd2tns

— Carl Banks (@CarlBanksGIII) July 24, 2023