Barkley, Jacobs, and Pollard didn't get a long term deal yesterday as the 4 pm window closed. Jacobs was actually sitting in his car outside the facility expecting to get something done. Barkley was $1-2 million off and the Giants wouldn't budge. Guy shot himself in the foot by turning down $14m/year during the offseason. So these tags led to a bunch of RBs come out vocally yesterday. Barkley has made it pretty apparent that he will not report to camp and will likely hold out. Since he did not sign the tag, he will not be fined for missing camp or any time. He has until week 10 to report or the year doesn't count. I would be shocked if this isn't the last of Barkley in NY.
I believe the issue with tagging Jones would have been the $41 million tag # counts fully against the cap leaving them with almost nothing left to add along the margins, to sign their draft picks, and then sign Barkley.
Barkley overplayed his hand. RB values are diminishing to the point where fantasy drafts have more WR's in the first round than RB's.
I can't imagine what is "trash" about this. It goes even further back - if you look at the leading rushers on the Super Bowl winning teams going back to the 2007 season, exactly one of them made the Pro Bowl in any season after the one in which their team won the Super Bowl (Marshawn Lynch, one time) - that's Pro Bowl, not All-Pro (I didn't include Isiah Pacheco from last year, of course). It's no better for the teams that lost the Super Bowl - again, only once did the leading rusher for the Super Bowl loser make the Pro Bowl in any season afterwards (Frank Gore, one time). The comparison with quarterbacks is of course laughable (Brady, Roethlisberger, Rodgers, both Mannings, Brees, R. Wilson, Mahomes, Burrow all being named to usually multiple Pro Bowls after first appearing in the Super Bowl), but there is also no comparison when consider the leading receivers of Super Bowl teams (Welker, Fitzgerald, Gronkowski, Doug Baldwin, Julio Jones, Zach Ertz, and Travis Kelce all being named to multiple Pro Bowls, and eight others being named to one in the later years). You give big contracts in anticipation of future performance, not as a reward for past performance, and regression to the mean is very strong for running backs. Want another stat? Look at the Giants themselves. Tiki Barber led the team in rushing every season from 2000-2006, and then retired. That last year the Giants as a team rushed for 2156 yards on 455 carries, a 4.7 YPC rate. The next year their top rusher, Brandon Jacobs, rushed for 653 fewer yards than Barber had in his last year, but the team as a whole rushed for 2148 yards (8 fewer yards!) on 469 carries, a 4.6 YPC rate. They didn't miss him at all. I also find the notion of lack of "fairness" laughable. The Giants offered Barkley about $20 million guaranteed, far more than enough money to set himself and his family up for multiple generations. Running backs get chewed up and spit out in the NFL, and feeling sorry for the guys who never get offered a second contract is very reasonable. Feeling sorry for people like Barkley, Jacobs, and Pollard strikes me as pretty ridiculous, and I think it's likely that they will pay for their foolishness.
I think the 'fairness' aspect of it relates to the use of the franchise tag on RB's. Imagine you are the second (but improved) coming of Eric Dickerson. You're picked in the first round and after reeling off consecutive +2,000 yard seasons, multiple all-pro's and making the likes of Bowles/Gase into SB winning coaches you've reached the end of the fifth year option. You are the literal personification of a 'franchise player' who is beyond value to your franchise but your value to the franchise is not dependent on what you've done or are capable of, It's not even based on the franchise itself but the average of contracts of other players paid by other franchises. Your value isn't the same as your now multi-ringed and uber-paid team mate Sam Darnold, it's not even on par with CMAC.....your value is roughly Corey Davis and you are about the 175th best player in the league based off AAV and about the 5th or 6th best player on the Jets by the same metric. If you're so valuable to the franchise that they have to use the tag then the calculation should be based on what they are paying out to their other top 3 to 5 players.
It is sad to see. Running back is my favorite skill position player to watch I think things can be cyclical and bounce back though at some point and Barkley’s injury likely cost him a lot of money more than anything
I don't agree with how running backs are valued today. In the case of Barkley, he's also a big receiving threat, and he basically carried the team last year. When they used him heavily they won more games. Jones got his contract thanks to Barkley and now Barkley is being thrown in the trash over a few million dollars after giving Jones $40m per year and Dexter $22. He should be making near McCaffrey money. Giants are stupid for cheaping out like this. The extra cap hit of 2-3 million more per year is well worth the contribution the guy makes to the team in production. If Barkley isn't playing for this team, Jones will take a huge step back along with the rest of th team. The Giants really didn't do much to address the WR unit, and losing Barkley would be too much, IMO. They aren't a playoff contender without him. What incentive is there for a person to be a RB these days when you get paid less than most other positions? Why punish your body and risk your health when the most you'll ever make is 50-60% of what top receivers make? You're going to see this position slowly disappear at this rate.
We really have no idea what amount Barkley is asking for and for how long. I’m sure no one would mind paying him an extra 2-3 mil for a year or two. I’d be willing to bet he wants a longer contract than that and I don’t blame the giants one bit. The replacement level at RB is not worth the giant contract. The jets and patriots just gave Cook and Zeke 6 and 8 million, when most of the better or equal rbs singed for millions less. The bills paid 1.7 for Damien Harris and league minimum for latavius murray. Other rbs signed between 1.5 and 3 mil. I’m taking those guys all day long
Damien Harris runs with cinder blocks on his feet. Murray is durable but he has poor vision. Reminds me a lot of Zonovan 'BAM' Knight, the Jets 4th string RB. Both those guys are not in the same category of talent as Dalvin Cook and Ezekiel Elliott.
And what do you know, Murray with a more productive season than Cook, and more value than Elliott at a league minimum contract.
lol you are obsessed with me, you should get a life yeah I was wrong about Dalvin Cook, he fucking sucks I must’ve missed where Latavius Murray is lighting it up though
