He’s Public Enemy No. 26. He has come to bury the Giants, not to praise them.
He wears 26 for the Eagles now, not for your Giants. He wanted to wear 26 for you, wanted to retire one day and bid farewell as “Once a Giant, only a Giant,” just as Eli Manning did.
You know the rest.
Cheer for him when you see Saquon Barkley on Sunday at 1 p.m. It doesn’t have to be a standing ovation. But cheer for him.
Thank him for the memories.
Because once the game starts, he is Public Enemy No. 26. Now, feel free to boo him whenever he touches the ball.
But it shouldn’t be beneath you to acknowledge what he meant to the franchise, and to you, for six seasons.
There wasn’t a more popular Giant once Odell Beckham Jr. was traded in March 2019. You probably know someone who has Barkley’s 26 jersey. You might even have one yourself. Some of you might even decide to wear it Sunday.
He was the classy, handsome face of your franchise. A dream Giant. He was a leader the day he showed up. He came all the way back from that devastating knee injury Sept. 20, 2020, to help Daniel Jones deliver your first playoff win since the Manning Giants won Super Bowl XLVI.
He endured too much losing but never stopped trying to change everything for the better. He endured too much head coaching turmoil. He endured offensive lines that too often made running to daylight a pipe dream but running in quicksand a cruel reality.
They say no man is an island, but tell that to him. He was the only Giants playmaker, once OBJ was exiled to Cleveland, who scared defenses and kept defensive coordinators up at night. He studied the greats at his position and aspired to be mentioned one day in the same breath.
It was a blessing and a curse for him to be the second-overall pick of the 2018 draft. It never stopped being an albatross around his neck, because the analytics crowd were the first to remind everyone that running backs in a quarterback-driven league should never be drafted that high. Former GM Dave Gettleman didn’t care. The Giants organization didn’t care. It wasn’t only them who considered him the best player in the draft. Most of the NFL did.
Gettleman didn’t care that he left Sam Darnold with the third pick for the Jets. Barkley outlasted Darnold in New York. But he could not impact winning even if Gettleman told us that he was ”touched by the hand of God.”
He could not impact winning the way a quarterback like Josh Allen would have had Gettleman drafted him instead. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. You draft the wrong quarterback, you set your program back, and you might not get to draft another quarterback. That’s the Gettleman Doctrine.
So Gettleman kicked the quarterback can down the road, and Barkley won Offensive Rookie of the Year in Manning’s last full season as starting quarterback before Daniel Jones was the controversial sixth pick of the 2019 draft and designated heir to the throne.
You know the rest.
Jones got the bag.
Barkley got the tag.
His Giants career came to an unceremonious end at a time when the devaluation of running backs not named Christian McCaffrey was and is all the rage. It happened to jibe with the team-building philosophy of Giants GM Joe Schoen.
You might have watched it play out on “Hard Knocks,” John Mara lobbying for his marquee star to stay a Giant: ”I’ll have a hard time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia, I’ll tell you that. … He’s the most popular player we have by far.” And you wonder how much sleep Mara has gotten since Barkley went to Philadelphia for a three-year, $37.75 million deal and scored three touchdowns in his Eagles debut to help beat the Packers in Brazil on Sept. 6.
Barkley took the money and ran, and you would have, too.
He is 27 now and running out of time to be that “Gold Jacket guy” Gettleman envisioned. Barkley gets to run behind the best offensive line he has ever run behind, though on his return, he won’t have left tackle Jordan Mailata (hamstring) clearing a path for him.
He gave you three 1,000-yard seasons, caught 288 passes, scored 48 TDs, gave you blood, sweat and tears and broken bones. You called him Saquad, remember?
He is fourth in the league with 482 rushing yards, with a career-best 5.3 yard average. The Eagles are 3-2. He will be intent on making sure the Giants are 2-5 when he leaves. Nothing personal. Or maybe everything personal.
Only he knows what will be in his heart Sunday at 1. No matter what he has said and will say, this is not just another game for Saquon Barkley.
If you can’t forgive him and consider him a traitor, so be it. He did what was best for himself and his family. Boo him all you want once the game starts. That he’ll understand. Devin Singletary wears 26 for your Giants now. Saquon Barkley, Philadelphia Eagle, is Public Enemy No. 26.
But thank him for the memories first.
