One year before Saquon Barkley departed the Giants for the Eagles in free agency in 2024, Barkley actually requested a trade from New York in 2023. A new Prime Video documentary which follows Barkley over the last five years of his career will be released Thursday on the day Barkley faces his former team, and showcases the frustrations that went on behind the scenes during contract negotiations between him and the Giants.
Per the New York Post, Barkley turned down the first contract extension offer the Giants made to him during the bye week of the 2022 NFL season. Barkley wanted to be the highest-paid running back, and did not agree with the contract or amount of guarantees the Giants were offering.
“It was a joke,” Barkley said of the negotiation, via The Post. “It really was a spit in my face. And then come out here and give me the ball 35 times. They really don’t appreciate me to be completely honest. They think they are trying to run me into the dirt, get what they can get and then hopefully something bad happens so he can f------ go somewhere else.”
The Giants went on to make the playoffs that season and then placed the franchise tag on him during the offseason. In the months after the Giants tagged Barkley, they were still unable to get an extension with Barkley done, so the star running back asked Giants owner John Mara on the deadline for tagged players to sign extensions if he could seek out a trade.
“I’m not going to do that,” Mara told Barkley, per The Post. “That makes no sense for us. To be honest with you, it’s not going to be in your long-term best interest to do that. There’s no way that I would allow that at this point. You are too valuable to this franchise.”
Barkley ended up signing the franchise tag when it was adjusted to add a $2 million signing bonus. Still, he and the Giants never agreed to a multi-year extension, even though Barkley was later willing to sign for a much lower price tag.
“I would’ve signed for $10 million, $11 million [per year] if they would’ve just operated a whole different way,” Barkley said before signing with the Eagles in free agency. “If I felt in my heart they tried their best to get it done.”
Instead, Barkley played the 2023 season on the franchise tag and signed with the Eagles in free agency. It seems things worked out for him in the end. Not only did Barkley get paid, but after rushing for over 2,000 yards and winning the Super Bowl in his first year in Philly, the Eagles already re-signed him to a deal that has made him the highest-paid back in the NFL.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as New Saquon Barkley Documentary Reveals RB Requested Trade From Giants in 2023.
