When Saquon Barkley Proudly Looked Back at His Giants Rookie Year Alongside ‘Old’ Eli Manning

For most of his first six NFL seasons, Saquon Barkley believed he was going to be a New York Giant for life. Things obviously didn’t work out that way (and we’re pretty sure he’s not complaining about it now).

Regardless, Barkley enjoyed his time in The Big Apple, even if it was briefer than he had once hoped. He reflected on his Giants tenure weeks after signing with the Philadelphia Eagles last offseason on the New Heights podcast. There, he informed Jason and Travis Kelce that he was excited to “return home” and begin his NFL career in New York.

“The year before, they went 3-13, but everybody got banged up… the year prior, that’s when they made it to the playoffs… from their mindset, they’re like, ‘we know what we have in our team. We can add a weapon, and he can come in and bring a spark. Eli [Manning’s] on the older age, but he still has some ball left.’ It just made sense… and obviously I wanted to be there.”

The Giants selected Barkley No. 2 overall in the 2018 NFL Draft. A Bronx native, he hoped to help aging Eli Manning, who was in his final NFL years, return to the postseason(the QB retired in 2020). He unfortunately couldn’t do so, as the Giants began 1-7 before finishing in the NFC East’s basement with a 5-11 record.

On New Heights, Barkley said the team “just wasn’t finding ways to win games.” He wasn’t lying. New York lost eight contests by seven points or less – and five by three points or fewer that season. He had a tremendous individual campaign, though, posting 2,028 yards from scrimmage and 15 touchdowns to win Offensive Rookie of the Year honors.

Who is responsible for Saquon Barkley’s “Welcome to the NFL” moment?

Every player has a “Welcome to the NFL” moment. They can typically bring it to memory in a flash. Barkley, without hesitation, mentioned J.J. Watt was responsible for his incident.

“We’re playing Houston, and we had a counter to the left. He won on the backside and still got to me as I was getting the ball. It was like, ‘that doesn’t make sense’… [and] he [boomed] me, too… then when you go back and you watching film, it’s just like, ‘no way he did that. There’s no way he did that.'”

Barkley posted 117 total yards and a touchdown in the Giants’ 27-22 win that afternoon. Despite that, Watt’s unreal defensive performance -eight tackles, three sacks, three tackles for loss, four quarterback hits, and a forced fumble – stuck with him the most. It made Barkley realize the gulf that exists between the best players and merely average ones. Now, he’s the one creating other “Welcome to the NFL” moments.

Barkley just posted the most single-season rushing yards (including postseason) in NFL history this year and won the Super Bowl. His dominant season will go down as one of the greatest ever, making it an incredibly tough act to follow. But if anyone can produce a worthy encore, it’d be him. We’ll find out what he has in store soon enough.