After a lot of headlines, drama, and speculation, Saquon Barkley will be returning to the Giants on a 1 year deal. As we have noted in prior articles and will mention in our deep dive article coming out soon about running backs, we are not sure which side is right. On one hand Barkley is the biggest piece of the Giant offense, but on the other he has not been a model of health. Either way, Barkley and the Giants will have one year more together before they are doing this dance again.

The Deal is 1 year, 11 million, plus a 2 million signing bonus. It is fully guaranteed and comes with multiple performance based incentives.

His base is 900k more than it would have been on the Franchise Tag, and if he reaches his incentives he will be eligible for the next FT bracket which is over 13 million. Saquon pushed for a tag exemption clause but was unsuccessful. The Giants did not do much to ensure they would be fine without Barkley, so getting him for this season at least was a necessity.

As far as Saquon goes, this is a good one year deal given that it is fully guaranteed, but he is not getting any younger. What makes this even worse is that he turned down (according to varying reports) an offer from the Giants that was multiple years and would have paid him anywhere from 12.5-14 million AAV. Barkley bet on himself and somewhat lost, as he has nothing definite as far as contracts or extension after this one year deal, whereas he could have had multiple years of security. The running back market is fickle at the moment, and the Barkley situation proves it. We doubt Josh Jacobs will fare any better (as Barkley should be worth more in theory) and he too may have hurt his market value by waiting.