Giants ‘Hard Knocks’ Takeaways: Saquon Barkley on exploring trade and ‘not giving up’ on Daniel Jones

Tuesday night’s premiere episode of “Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants” began and ended with a February meeting of the team’s top executives, which apparently focused on the future of running back Saquon Barkley. But in line with the team’s direction the past two years, quarterback Daniel Jones’ fate was intertwined.

As general manager Joe Schoen spoke with resignation about Barkley’s possible departure in free agency, he focused on the quarterback, whom he gave a four-year, $160 million contract last March.

“This is Daniel’s year,” said Schoen. “The whole plan was to give him a few years. Is he our man for the next 10 years, or do we need to find someone else?

This type of insider conversation will be the most valuable content generated from HBO’s first behind-the-scenes look at an NFL front office during the offseason. The staff meetings were a clear highlight of the first episode as Schoen and his staff planned for the future after last season’s disappointing 6-11 finish.

Here’s a review of some of the show’s most notable moments:

barclay puzzle

A February 16 meeting regarding Barkley’s fate took place in Schoen’s office. He was joined by assistant general manager Brandon Brown, director of player personnel Tim McDonnell, director of pro scouting Chris Rossetti, assistant director of player personnel Dennis Hickey, senior vice president of football operations and strategy Kevin Abrams, director of football operations Ed Triggs, and Chris Rossetti. Charles Tisch, manager of football administration. That group makes up the heaviest hitters in the Giants pro personnel department.

There was a surprising amount of discussion about the possibility of the franchise tagging Barkley a second time and then trying to trade him. Schoen saw this as unrealistic, but Rossetti wondered if the Giants could find an interested party for a player of Barkley’s caliber.

Abrams, who moved from assistant GM to his current role after hiring Schoen, expressed skepticism that any team would be willing to pay Barkley’s $12 million tag cost (to facilitate the deal. (minus any money paid by the Giants for the draft) and skip a draft. Choose a trade.

“The needs we have are met and there’s a $12 million, 27-year-old running back,” Schoen interjected, apparently thinking out loud. Hickey, the former Dolphins GM and now Shawn mentor, punctuated that comment for a long time, calling trading Barkley a “Hail Mary” and pointing to the drama that would come with a tag and trade.

“Dealing with him took 10 years out of my life,” Schoen said of failed extension talks with Barkley through 2023. “Emotionally, it was exhausting. We spent a lot of time on it. But still, I don’t want that to be the reason we don’t do what’s best for the franchise.”

McDonnell, who is the nephew of co-owner John Mara, asked what the identity of the offense would be without Barkley. McDonnell talked about how big of a role Barkley has played in the offense and how “the quarterback, if it’s Daniel, depends on the run game.”

Schoen countered that upgrading the offensive line was his priority. He said if you’re paying a quarterback $40 million a year, it doesn’t make sense to hand the ball off to the $12 million guy. In other words, Schoen expects his quarterback to be the reason the Giants win, not the running backs.

Do the right thing’?

Mara was not at the top executives’ meeting in Schoen’s office, and the boss was not seen at any other scouting gathering. Instead, he held a personal meeting with Schoen on February 13 – three days before the Barclay/Jones conference mentioned earlier.

Schoen told Mara that it would not make sense to place the franchise tag on Barkley. Mara countered that unless they could trade Barkley after tagging him, the group discussed the same point three days later.

It was a little hard to understand how Schoen came to the point of offering Barkley $7 million, but he said he did not want to make that offer because he did not want to “disrespect” the face of the franchise. It was clear in the comments regarding Barkley that the front office was well aware of the potential controversies that could arise from their handling of the situation.

Schoen expressed his plan to “do the right thing” and allow Barkley free agency so he can explore his market. Schoen hoped Barkley would return to see if the Giants could match.

“In an ideal world, I would still like to have him back,” Mara said. “Until we prove we can run a good offense without him.”

Mara and McDonnell’s comments show there were influential skeptics about letting Barkley walk. The fact that the Giants ultimately did so supports Mara’s claim that he does not make personnel decisions.

Schoen then directed the conversation towards Jones and found out “if he’s the same guy” since he is making “a lot of money”. Schoen again stressed the importance of upgrading the offensive line, although it was interesting that he cited tight end Darren Waller as a major part of the offense. Waller had been considering retirement since the previous season ended, which he ultimately did in June.

Schoen also talked about the depth of the free-agent running back class. He said he thought value signings would be available in the second week of free agency. Schoen apparently didn’t have the courage to test that theory, because just hours after Barkley signed a three-year, $37.8 million deal with the Eagles on the first day of free agency he signed Devin Singletary to a three-year deal. Signed a $16.5 million contract.

In a clip of a meeting in Scion’s office, which was shown at the beginning of the episode, Mara said, “If we’re going to close this deal, I’m going to have a heartbeat.” That comment apparently came from a later episode as the full context was not shown during this episode.

knowledgeable

Rossetti was the main figure in the January 11 meeting with top executives and the pro scouting department, which took place four days after the season ended, to break down potential free-agent targets. Rossetti’s assessment of Singletary was that he could play on third down, but more of a screen/underneath receiver. Rossetti described Singletary as a decisive runner with natural instincts. Rossetti questioned whether Singletary would leave the Texans and noted that the Giants might have to overpay to bring the 26-year-old back.

In this conversation and a subsequent meeting in Schoen’s office, Rossetti believed there would be a trade market for Barkley if he was tagged. Rossetti candidly noted that the Eagles could value Barkley behind their powerhouse offensive line.

Schoen was skeptical that the Eagles would spend big on running backs, instead he thought they would spend on the defensive backfield. Schoen then ticked off the Giants’ needs — cornerbacks, pass rushers, No. 1 wide receiver — and said running back gets pushed down the list.

The Giants addressed the pass rush with the trade for Brian Burns and the No. 1 wide receiver need by taking Malik Nabors with the No. 6 pick. But the lack of investment in cornerback this offseason has been surprising, especially with Schoen citing it as one of the team’s biggest needs at the start of the offseason.

looking for safety

Schoen, Brown, and McDonnell held a meeting in Schoen’s office at one point, when Schoen lamented that he was better at every position on defense and certain positions on offense than the previous season and “F -ing had won six games.”

The conversation again focused on Jones, with Schoen pointing out how poor the line had been in the Week 5 loss to the Dolphins. Jones was forced out of that game with a neck injury after badly beating backup left tackle Josh Ezudu for a sack.

“You can have Pat Mahomes and not get wins behind him,” Schoen said. “I’m not giving up on (Jones). He is under contract for three more years. Just protecting ourselves because the best predictor of the future is the past.”

The last comment was a hint of Jones potentially moving forward based on his injury history. But the episode didn’t add to the Giants’ search for a quarterback in the draft should that come.

This discussion was followed by a section on Jones’ rehabilitation. We can all assume that Jones will work hard in rehab and HBO may limit the time spent documenting the process.

quick strike

• Defensive coordinator Wink Martindale’s explosive departure on the first day of the offseason was reduced to a montage of news reports.

• An early offseason meeting on defensive free agents revealed the Giants explored every possible option. The meeting began with Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones re-signing a five-year, $158.8 million contract in Kansas City. Signing Jones wasn’t realistic, but scouts had a moment to consider pairing him with Dexter Lawrence in the middle of the defensive line.

There was early talk of a trade for Burns. Rossetti estimated Burns’ trade value as more than a first-round pick plus a first-round pick, noting that the Panthers once rejected an offer of two first-round picks. Schoen explained that Carolina had a new general manager, Dan Morgan, and the two sides were not able to work out an extension.

• Schoen and Morgan have been close friends during their time together in Carolina and Buffalo. His “preliminary trade talks” at the Senior Bowl on February 2 were mostly light-hearted banter between friends. Morgan even said that they talk every day. But even as they threw out “proposals,” it was clear that the groundwork for a potential deal had been laid.

• As was his priority, coach Brian Daboll was a minor character. It was funny at one point when he pulled Schoen into his office and said he was going to offer “Shane” the defensive coordinator job and Schoen confirmed it was “Shane Bowen.” Daboll interviewed several candidates for the job, but Bowen was the only candidate whose name was Shane’s.

Daboll explained that his pitch would essentially be, “Do you want to be in this or what?” He then showed Schoen the statistics of Bowen’s defense over the past three seasons with the Titans. Daboll is clearly hoping Bowen can achieve similar success with the Giants run defense.

• Bowen’s initial meeting with the front office covered the basics of his defense. Although no DC likes to reveal such information, he confirmed that it is a 3-4 base defense. He said the two inside linebackers need to be the smartest players. Bowen would be delighted to inherit the experienced Bobby Okereke in one of those spots.

• Business should pick up in next week’s episode, which appears to be focused on the scouting combine. The preview featured the team’s NFL Scouting Combine interview with Nabors. It will be interesting to see how much of the quarterback interviews we see. At the beginning of the first episode, No. 1 pick Caleb Williams was shown on the whiteboard in the combine suite.

(Photo by Joe Schoen: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY)