It isn’t every day a former top-five draft pick coming off a career high in rushing yards hits the free agent market, but such is the case with New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley.

We all remember the hype as Barkley was finishing up his outstanding college career at Penn State. The question was, “How high would he go?” The NFL had already begun to view running backs in a different light than in years past, as the league was becoming more pass-happy by the year. In the previous five NFL drafts, only five running backs had been drafted in the first round. But few had the pre-draft craze that Barkley did with his combination of speed and pass-catching prowess.

First year Head Coach Pat Schurmur, fresh off a run to the NFC Championship Game as offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, and first year General Manager Dave Gettleman, eager to make a splash with the New York media, selected Barkley second overall in the 2018 draft. The reviews on the pick were mixed to say the least, with many clamoring for defensive help in the form of high-end prospect Bradley Chubb or perhaps the heir apparent to quarterback Eli Manning.

But the new regime in New York found the talent mix that Barkley brought to the table impossible to resist. He burst onto the scene in week one, running for 106 yards and a touchdown. He followed that up with a 14-catch performance in week two, and would gain 100 or more scrimmage yards in 13 of 16 games. He remained productive in 2019 despite missing a few games due to injury, but would tear his ACL two games into 2020 and miss the rest of the season. He returned in 2021, but was clearly not 100%, missing three additional games with an unrelated injury and averaging a career-low 3.7 yards per carry.

He bounced back in a huge way in his contract year of 2022. He flew out of the gates with 164 rushing yards and a touchdown and added six receptions week one against Tennessee, and he would parlay that into a career-high 1312 rushing yards, good for fourth in the NFL, while staying healthy and playing in all 16 games until sitting out a meaningless week 18 game in preparation for the playoffs.

The burst was back, he recorded double-digit touchdowns for the first time since his rookie season, and he finished with 57 receptions. He has fumbled only four times in his career, and proved to the rest of the league he could handle a full workload once again, carrying 295 times in 2022, good for fourth in the league, and the third most touches with 352.

The question now becomes, “How valuable is a top running back in the free agent market in 2023?” Years ago, general managers across the league would have salivated at the prospect of acquiring a top-5 running back for nothing more than the cost of his contract. But the league has changed dramatically in recent years, and teams simply don’t allocate salary cap resources to the running back position like they once did, nor does the league as a whole place the same value on the position as in previous eras.

Spotrac.com projects Barkley’s next contract to average $12.3 million AAV, which is a very large number for a running back in 2023. Barkley is supremely talented and multi-faceted, and could fit into any offensive scheme, but it has to be a team with the right offensive mentality that still puts a premium focus on running the ball. And oh yeah, they’ll need a boat load of cap space.

Some potential landing spots:

The Bears have an insane amount of available cap space. Spotrac.com has the Bears with $98.8 million in available cap for 2023. They also have eight picks in the upcoming draft, including number one overall. Internally the Bears have to be wondering if Justin Fields truly is their quarterback of the future, but that’s a discussion for another column. If Chicago decides to build around Fields, they have the luxury of doing so in the short-term while Fields is under his rookie contract. No team ran more in 2022 than the Bears, running on 56.2% of their offensive plays, and Barkley could easily fill the role vacated by UFA David Montgomery. Fields could only benefit from having a weapon of Barkley’s calibre on the field with him, and the Bears have more than enough cap space make it happen.

The Ravens are facing an offseason full of questions. They made the playoffs for the fourth time in five years, but they did so in a very up-and-down season that never really felt like it got on track. They still managed a 10-7 record, losing to the Bengals in the first round of the playoffs. Former MVP Lamar Jackson is the biggest question mark, as he enters free agency without representation. Whether the star quarterback stays or goes will go a long way in determining how much cap room the Ravens would have for a move on Barkley. As of now the Ravens have over $24 million available for 2023, though most if not all of that would be absorbed by re-signing Jackson. Either way, the Ravens are and have long been a run-first team, finishing third in the league last year running on 50.2% of their offensive plays. J.K. Dobbins, Justice Hill, Gus Edwards and Kenyon Drake were all inconsistent in 2023 and the Ravens never really settled on which running back to feature. Barkley would settle that debate.

The Lions head in to 2023 as a trendy pick to challenge for the NFC North title. Their young core and enthusiastic coaching staff have this team on an upward trajectory. Jared Goff may or may not be the long-term solution at quarterback, but he was rock-solid in 2022, throwing for over 4400 yards with 29 touchdowns to only seven interceptions. Amon-Ra St. Brown looks like a top-10 receiver in the league, and Detroit invested a first-round pick in fellow wideout Jameson Williams. Their defense is full of young talent, including budding superstar Aiden Hutchinson, and their offensive line is solid and improving. As for their running backs, Jamaal Williams led the team in rushing in 2022 but is entering free agency himself, and D’Andre Swift has done anything but inspire confidence that he can handle any kind of work load, missing multiple games in each of his three seasons while garnering puzzlingly sparce usage throughout 2022. That leaves a big opening for a team that seems to be hitting its stride, and Detroit has over $23 million in cap room to play with.

The Cardinals, admittedly, are a bit of a mess right now. They hired former Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon as their new head coach, and are looking to hit the reset button after a disastrous 2022 season, finishing 4-13 while losing their final seven games. Kyler Murray is as polarizing a figure as there is in the NFL right now, and Arizona signing him to a $230 million deal ensures that he will be ‘their’ polarizing figure for the foreseeable future. They have quality receivers in DeAndre Hopkins, Marquise Brown, and Rondale Moore, with Zach Ertz at tight end. Hopkins however is on the wrong side of 30 and Moore is extremely undersized. They have James Conner at running back for at least one more year after signing him to a 3-year, $21 million deal prior to 2022. Conner was fine last year, averaging 4.3 yards per attempt, but his involvement in the passing game is somewhat limited, he’s fumbled 12 times in five years, and he’s missed time due to injury in each of his five seasons as a starter. Running back isn’t a huge team need, and Gannon is a defensive coach, but a star like Barkley could help take some of the pressure off of Murray, and Arizona heads into 2023 with over $12 million in available cap space.

It is entirely possible that the Giants move to re-sign Barkley themselves. The Giants have the fourth most available cap space heading into 2023 at just over $40 million, and were the 11th most run-heavy team in 2022. No one knows better than their own coaching staff, led by NFL Coach of the Year Brian Daboll, how well and how fully Barkley has recovered from his 2020 ACL tear. The Giants were a surprise playoff team in 2022 and won a wildcard round playoff game on the road at Minnesota, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see them try to build on what they already have going. The Giants do need to figure out what they’re going to do about quarterback Daniel Jones, who is also hitting free agency and is asking for a ridiculous amount of money. With the amount of cap space they have, it would make sense for them to add key pieces to their mix, or at the very least keep the ones they have.

J.D. Day

CREDITS:

Spotrac.com for cap space figures and salary projection

Saquon Barkley: will he stay or will he go?

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