New York Giants: The Giants are wasting a truly excellent year from Saquon Barkley

The New York Giants are all but officially out of playoff contention for 2018, but Saquon Barkley cannot be stopped making the year beyond this one look bright.

The New York Giants are not a great team but have some fantastic players and running back Saquon Barkley has already become that.

You might not need me to tell you this, but Saquon Barkley is a great NFL running back. It already feels like he will be special.

You can just watch the Giants or the game of football for that matter, and see how good Barkley has been.

More from Empire Writes Back

He should be the rookie of the year, but the Giants’ season might take that away from him, either way, more and other awards are poised to come to him.

But. let’s keep the focus on 2018. It is obvious the Giants are wasting the talent of Odell Beckham Jr. That is the same story a different year.

Plus, to some, Odell is the cause of a lot of the Giants’ problems, so maybe this isn’t news.

However, what is surprising, is how well Saquon is doing. He is putting up ridiculous numbers, but the Giants aren’t winning many games.

Coming off a win vs the Chicago Bears is encouraging, but will it be enough? Probably not.

So, let’s look at the stats. How do I know the Giants are wasting Saquon’s amazing season. Well, you could watch the Giants and see it, but the numbers actually prove it.

I went to profootballreference.com, fittingly enough, to reference these numbers. At the time of this writing here is what I found.

In rushing yards per game Saquon Barkley is fifth in the league at 79.5 yards per game.

The four players above him in that stat?

Are Todd Gurley, Ezekiel Elliott, Melvin Gordon, and Lamar Miller. All starters for teams who are currently in the playoffs.

Phillip Lindsay and James Conner rank below him. They are on two more potential playoff teams.

That stat is important because it relies on consistency. Saquon is putting up elite numbers every game with little results to show for it.

However, it does not end there.

It total rushing yards, perhaps a more impressive stat, Saquon is even better. He ranks third currently at 954. He will shatter the 1,000-yard mark and only trails Elliott and Gurley.

Once again, most playoff teams have players like Saquon and are winning with them.

Just for more reference of how productive has been, here is one more stat I found.

Saquon has eight rushing TDs. Impressive enough to lead be tied for fifth in the NFL and tied with fellow rookie Phillip Lindsay.

The four above him? You guessed it, playoff teams. Gurley, Conner, Alvin Kamara, and Gordon.

This is no longer becoming a coincidence.

Saquon’s numbers are right up there with running backs of playoff or at the very least, better teams than the New York Giants.

Saquon is also in the top six in the league in total TDs and long plays, but I won’t even include more league-wide stats to save time.

Yes, I understand that the Giants are not as great of a team as the rest of these players who are above in the stats can say.

Football is a team effort in every way and so much more goes into it than a single player just being good.

However, the correlation is freighting.

There are great teams out there who have players like Saquon, great running backs and are winning with them.

The Giants and this might even say more about Saquon, have a top 5ish running back in the league based on the numbers and are failing to win games with him.

Saquon doing this on a less elite team is impressive enough in itself, but it has become aggravating to watch.

Even just looking at the stats even more, and this time just looking at his compared to no one else’s, it becomes alarming how the Giants are wasting him.

The first thing that caught my eye was this.

Saquon’s best games receiving in his career thus far, and pass catching is a huge part of his game, the best seven of those, his highest seven games receiving, were all in Giants losses.

That stat alone shows he cannot do it on his own.

To add on, in the five times he has gone over 100 yards rushing, the Giants are 2-3.

So, even when he does just his #1 job, run the ball from scrimmage well, the Giants fail to win the game around him more times than not. They are not overcomplicating his role, that is not the problem.

It is honestly interesting to see how Saquon is putting up such great numbers and it is not resulting in wins.

Look at a team like the Buffalo Bills, for example.

Their running back LeSean McCoy is having an awful year, nowhere even remotely close to Saquon’s and the Bills still aren’t winning many games

That is something that makes more sense.

The Giants are wasting Saquon Barkley’s talents. They should now know that it is time to build around him and him only.

He has done more than enough to prove he can take the workload and run with it.

It is time to be like the rest of the NFL for the New York Giants. Have a great player like Saquon and use him as an asset and stop wasting him.

Next. Should the Giants move on from OBJ?. dark

Much easier said than done, but much easier now that we see how obviously it needs to be done.

Home/New York Giants