After the Giants and Saquon Barkley spent the past eight months in sporadic extension talks, the Pro Bowl running back will be forced to play this season on a $10.1MM franchise tag. Barkley joins Josh Jacobs and Tony Pollard in this boat during a turbulent stretch for the running back position.

The Giants and Barkley came within approximately $2MM — both in AAV and guarantees — of hammering out a deal. As RB value dropped this offseason, Barkley and Jacobs are not expected to report to their respective training camps. Barkley has now referenced the prospect of sitting out regular-season games on multiple occasions.

During a podcast appearance days before the Monday’s tag deadline, the Giants back outlined his thought process regarding his absence lasting into the regular season.

“I have no worry about going on a football field and knowing that I’m not playing for my worth or saying if I have to play, because this is my leverage: my leverage is I could say f*** you to the Giants,” Barkley said during an appearance on The Money Matters Podcast with Jack Mallers (via the New York Daily News’ Pat Leonard). “I could say f*** you to my teammates and be like, ‘You want me to show you my worth? You want me to show how valuable I am to the team? I won’t show up. I won’t play a down. And that’s a play I can use.

“Anybody [who] knows me knows that’s not something I want to do. But is that something that’s crossed my mind? I never thought I would ever do that, but now I’m at a point where it’s like ‘Jesus, like, I might have to take it to this level.’ Am I willing and prepared to take it to the level? I don’t know.”

None of Barkley’s options at this point include money beyond 2023. He has not signed the $10.1MM franchise tender, allowing for a camp no-show without a fine. He addressed the subject of a Le’Veon Bell-like move earlier this summer, and a recent report reintroduced the prospect of skipping at least Week 1. Barkley would lose out on $561K for each game missed, but seeing as the former No. 2 overall pick resides in a different NFL tax bracket compared to Jacobs or Pollard due to banking $38MM-plus from 2018-22, missing games to punish the Giants and remove the risk of injury and wear and tear is more realistic in this case.

“[Missing games is] something I gotta sit down and talk to my family [about],” Barkley said. “I gotta sit down and talk to my team, gotta really strategize about this. I can’t just go off of emotions … But I am at a place where if I do go on the field and have to play and prove again, I’m fine with that.”

The only upside of a Barkley in-season absence would be limiting mileage and better positioning himself for a free agency bid in 2024. Barkley logged 352 touches in 2018 and 2022, and injury- and talent-based questions about the Giants’ receiving corps positions the sixth-year running back as a cornerstone player in 2023 as well. While Bell took considerable heat for passing on a $14.5MM franchise tag in 2018, the Jets gave him a four-year, $52.5MM deal ($27MM guaranteed) in 2019. The current RB market does not suggest a windfall would await Barkley next year, and the Giants could tag him again at barely $12MM. But the Penn State product is running out of time to score a lucrative veteran contract.

Barkley, 26, can also attempt to use the threat of missed games to entice the Giants to add a clause that prohibits a second tag in 2024. This staring contest may last a bit, with Sportskeeda’s Tony Pauline adding Barkley feels disrespected and will be ready to stay away from his team for a “significant” time period.

Barkley assessed the contract negotiations — at least those that occurred before last weekend — and indicated a conversation with John Mara prompted him to intervene during the sides’ winter talks. But after the Giants franchise-tagged Barkley, they pulled a contract offer. The sides’ talks before this week’s deadline brought the guarantee total toward $22MM but dropped the AAV below $12MM. Although the Mara talks did not produce a deal, Pauline adds second-year GM Joe Schoen communicated to Barkley and Daniel Jones of a likelihood of the player not extended in March would have a real chance of playing on the tag. The Giants made Jones their top offseason priority and extended him (four years, $160MM) minutes before the March deadline to tag players.

“That was the only time I really got involved in the negotiation process,” Barkley said. “I sat down with the owner. The owner told me what it was, told me how they care about me. And this is when we were still going tit for tat [with offers] … The owner opened up to me, and I respected that.

“’I let you [Mara] know how much I feel about this place, how much I feel about your family, … how much I feel about [Steve] Tisch’s family.’ That’s when I picked up the phone and I called my agent and I was like, ‘I don’t care; let’s get it done. Like boom, this is where I want to be, this is the number I’m fine with, boom, let’s get there.’ … When you get tagged, now they have the tag, now it’s like, ‘You know what Saquon? If we really want to, we don’t have to offer you anything.'”

Previously accusing the Giants of providing dishonest information about his contract desires via leaks, Barkley also accused the team of comparing him to backs with inferior receiving skillsets. To be fair, the Giants have not used Barkley’s receiving chops too much since Pat Shurmur‘s exit; his last 400-plus-yard aerial season came in 2019.

“I’m not even asking for what I’m worth,” Barkley said of his goal before the deadline. “Because I just told you I’m the best running back in the NFL. But I’m not going to war for that. In the negotiation process, I’m not going to war for that.

“For me, I was like, you know what, I can go there, I can go to war, try to get as much money as I can, but at the end of the day, what really matters is winning, and winning a championship. And I know if I’m able to help bring a championship to New York, that’s going to go miles more ahead than this contract.”

Due to tag rules, Barkley contract talks cannot commence again until January 2024. The New Jersey native’s comments just before the tag deadline indicated he wanted to stay with the Giants for the rest of his career. It will be interesting to see how this saga plays out now that the extension talks have ceased.

Saquon Barkley headlined the list of running backs who were unable to negotiate a long-term deal ahead of yesterday’s deadline, leaving them to play out the season on the franchise tag. Talks between he and the Giants nearly produced an agreement.

The two parties came within roughly $1-$2MM of reaching an agreement on the matter of both annual compensation and guaranteed money, as detailed by Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post and corroborated (on Twitter) by NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo. The Giants’ final offer made in advance of the deadline was a three-year contract with an AAV of between $11MM and $11.5MM and $22-23MM in guarantees, per Dunleavy.

Barkley and the Giants had engaged in few contract talks in the weeks leading up to yesterday, but they circled back in an effort to come to terms. Given their inability to bridge the relatively small gap which existed – Dunleavy adds that both parties felt they had conceded as much as they could – the 26-year-old is now faced with the proposition of earning $10.1MM on the tag this season or sitting out regular season games and costing himself $560K per week in the process.

At the trade deadline in the 2022 season, Barkley seemed to a higher priority for the Giants than quarterback Daniel Jones. It was the latter who was the preferred target of a long-term deal by March, however, and the team’s ability to come to terms on a contract just before the deadline to apply tags allowed them to use it on Barkley. That shifted leverage towards New York, and the team faced little pressure to offer a lucrative package of salary and guarantees given the presence of the tag and the wider landscape of the RB market. Dunleavy does note, on the other hand, that “at least six teams” would have made a push to sign Barkley in free agency, had that become a possibility.

The Giants were unwilling – at least, right up until the deadline – to reach or surpass the $22MM mark in guarantees, a crucial figure in negotiations. Barkley (along with the Raiders’ Josh Jacobs and the Cowboys’ Tony Pollard) would earn just over $22MM by playing on franchise tags this year and next, so a long-term offer above that point would have been needed for a deal to be plausible. Upping the guarantees included lowering the AAV in the Barkley case, though, leaving the sides at an impasse.

The increasingly public nature of negotiations left the two-time Pro Bowler frustrated with this process, and attention will now turn to his willingness (or lack thereof) to participate in training camp in the build-up to his sixth season in the Big Apple. The team will face considerable expectations given last year’s surprising success, and Barkley will again be counted on as a focal point of New York’s offense. How the season dictates his financial market ahead of 2024 will be a major storyline to follow.

Today marks the deadline for franchise tag recipients to sign multi-year deals and avoid playing on the one-year tag for the 2023 season. That leaves only a few hours for the Giants and running back Saquon Barkley to come to an agreement.

Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post reports that the sides are expected to conduct further negotiations ahead of the 3pm central deadline (Twitter link). He adds that periods of contract talks have been few and far between in recent weeks, as New York has remained firm at its price point while the 26-year-old has attempted to use his limited leverage to achieve a larger guarantee than the $22MM he would earn on consecutive franchise tags.

With plenty of ground left to cover in a matter of hours, ESPN’s Jordan Raanan tweets that neither party is optimistic a deal will be reached today. That sentiment is echoed by Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports (via Twitter), who adds that a contract for Barkley, Josh Jacobs of the Raiders or Cowboys‘ back Tony Pollard would come as a surprise at this point. Only Pollard has signed his $10.1MM franchise tag as of now.

As a result, both Barkley and Jacobs would not be obligated to attend their respective training camps if they exited today without a long-term deal in hand. Both backs have been named as a candidate to sit out during Week 1, though the prospect of choosing to miss out on game checks would make such a scenario an unlikely one. Playing on the tag in 2023 would be an unwanted consolation for both players looking to reverse a downward trend in the running back market, something highlighted this offseason in particular.

To date, the highest guarantee figure Giants have been willing to offer is $19.5MM, but that appears to have recently changed. Dunleavy tweets that New York has submitted an offer “in the ballpark” of $22MM in terms of guarantees, but with a decreased annual average value compared to the one including $19.5MM. General manager Joe Schoen has shown a willingness to change the team’s position as circumstances shift. After their last-minute deal was worked out with quarterback Daniel Jones in March, the Giants withdrew the standing offer which was in place for Barkley, allowing them to apply the franchise tag. How far the team decides to go in terms of length, AAV and guarantees will be worth watching closely, especially as it relates to negotiations between Jacobs and the Raiders.

Barkley enjoyed a career year on the ground in 2022 (1,312 rushing yards), serving as the focal point of New York’s offense. The past campaign was only his second one spent at full health, however, and the team has Jones on the books through 2026 and a modified pass-catching corps led by tight end Darren Waller in place to help him take what they hope will be a notable step forward this season. The degree to which Barkley fits into the Giants’ intermediate- and long-term plans will be determined soon.

Unsurprisingly, guaranteed money has been perhaps the central issue in the Giants’ long-running negotiations with Saquon Barkley. Some numbers have come out regarding the guarantee proposal Thursday.

The Giants are believed to have offered Barkley $19.5MM guaranteed, while the New York Post’s Paul Schwartz indicates the current average annual salary term sits at around $13MM. That number hovers near where the Giants were before withdrawing their offer upon franchise-tagging Barkley in March. Big Blue’s winter proposal was believed to include $26MM over the first two years, but it is clear not all of it was guaranteed. The sides have until 3pm Monday to strike a deal. No extension agreement by then would mean Barkley is tied to the $10.1MM RB tag figure this season.

[RELATED: Barkley To Consider Skipping Week 1 If No Deal Reached]

It has long seemed the Barkley guarantee floor is $22.2MM, the cost of two franchise tags, but that number might not be enough to cross the finish line here. Barkley’s guarantee aim likely comes in a bit higher than the two-tag number, Fox Sports’ Ralph Vacchiano tweets. It should not be too surprising the two-time Pro Bowl running back would want more money locked in, seeing as the top two RB guarantees — for Derrick Henry and Christian McCaffrey — came on deals signed in 2020.

A bit of a difference exists between total guarantees and fully guaranteed money. In terms of guarantees that cover skill and injury, two backs — McCaffrey and Alvin Kamara — signed for more than $34MM apiece. Two other veterans — Henry and Nick Chubb — secured $20MM-plus guaranteed in total.

In terms of fully guaranteed cash, the only veteran deals north of $18MM went to McCaffrey ($30.1MM) and Henry ($25.5MM). Those agreements were finalized in April and July of 2020, respectively. Seeing as the salary cap has jumped by $26MM since then (and is expected to make another big leap in 2024), Barkley seeking that kind of security is not exactly out of step, though Schwartz adds a guarantee in the $22-23MM range will likely move Barkley to sign (video link).

The guarantee component is also interesting because Barkley has already played out a contract that contained more fully guaranteed dough than McCaffrey’s deal. Being drafted at No. 2 overall, Barkley enjoyed the luxury of his entire rookie contract (four years, $31.2MM) being guaranteed. With the Giants currently at $19.5MM on the guarantee front, it does not seem like Barkley will move the number past his rookie pact. But it is notable the sides have already ventured into that territory due to rookie slot money.

Barkley’s injury past has undoubtedly influenced the team’s guarantee figure. In addition to the ACL tear the New Jersey native suffered in September 2020, he sustained a high ankle sprain in 2019 and dealt with more ankle trouble in 2021. But the 26-year-old back rebounded with a healthy 2021 season, suiting up for 18 of the Giants’ 19 games (Brian Daboll rested him in Week 18). Barkley showed enough for the team — which discussed him in trades barely a year ago — to bring out its franchise tag. But time is running out for the sides to make a deal.

The Giants have been here before and come out with a resolution. No deal between the Giants and Daniel Jones was considered imminent two days before the March deadline for teams to tag players. Jones’ AAV ask was at $47MM at one point during the talks; the Giants hammered out a four-year, $160MM contract minutes before the March 7 deadline, allowing them to keep their quarterback off the market and tag their running back. The stakes are higher for Barkley, whose career will almost definitely not last as long as Jones’. This window represents an important opportunity for the sixth-year back to tack on another nice contract before his prime ends.

Considering the string of blows the running back position has absorbed this offseason, the Barkley-Giants talks — as well as the less publicized discussions between the Raiders and Josh Jacobs and Cowboys and Tony Pollard — double as critical for the market as a whole. As the Jones negotiations showed, however, a lot can happen in the final days before a deadline.