Star running back Saquon Barkley insisted Thursday he does not regret declining the Giants’ initial contract offers, even though that risky decision left him caving to the franchise tag.
“No,” Barkley said, when asked if regrets rejecting those early offers.
And why no regrets?
“It didn’t make sense,” he said.
He did not elaborate on why taking one of those offers didn’t make sense to him.
But he very obviously should regret rejecting those offers. One of them reportedly would’ve paid him $26 million in the deal’s first two years. Giants general manager Joe Schoen yanked that offer when he franchise tagged Barkley for $10.091 million.
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And then, before the July 17 long-term contract deadline, Barkley rejected a final offer from Schoen that would’ve paid just north of the $22.2 million he’d get from back-to-back tags in 2023 and 2024. (Of course, Barkley now isn’t guaranteed to get that tag in 2024.)
Barkley wound up not skipping any of training camp — though he said he seriously considered doing it — and accepted what is essentially a standard tag contract. The deal is slightly juiced up with $909,000 in tough-to-attain incentives that are all tied to the Giants reaching the playoffs.
So Barkley turned down the chance to make $26 million over two years and instead bet on himself, with a deal that can max out at $11 million and will pay him at least $10.091 million in 2023 — with no guarantees of anything beyond this year.
Barkley had a bit more to say Thursday — after the Giants’ second camp practice — about why he rejected Schoen’s final pre-deadline offer.
(That move put Barkley in a spot where pretty much all he could reasonably do was cave and accept the tag contract. He was never going to sit out games this season. And skipping a large chunk of camp also would’ve been foolish. He was out of options.)
“I said I wasn’t trying to reset the running back market,” he…
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