New York Giants: Impact of Ezekiel Elliott contract extension on Big Blue

News broke Wednesday morning that Dallas signed Ezekiel Elliott to the most lucrative running back contract in NFL history. The deal has some big effects on the New York Giants.

It’s a big deal. Actually its a really big deal as the New York Giants rivals in Dallas signed their star ball carrier Ezekiel Elliott to a six-year, $90M contract extension. As reported by NFL.com on Wednesday morning, it brings his total deal to eight-years, $103M, with $50M guaranteed. The extension makes Elliott the highest-paid running back in National Football League history. His average annual value of $15M eclipses Todd Gurley‘s AAV of $14.35M.

Elliott will now be in silver and blue for the rest of his career. This deal obviously causes ripples through the entire league. It also has a direct effect on the New York Giants in two areas. One is immediate and the other is long term.

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This is NFL opening week as Green Bay and Chicago kick off the season Thursday night. Three days later Big Blue heads to ATT Stadium for a showdown with Dallas. If the G-Men were expecting a hampered offense from their opponents on Sunday, it’s not happening. Dallas will have Zeke in the lineup.

The star running back has been training on his own in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico while his teammates have been in training camp. He says he’s in shape and good to go for Sunday’s 4:25 PM EDT kickoff. While Zeke may not take his usual amount of snaps, guaranteed he’ll be a factor.

The second impact to the New York Giants will not play out this season and maybe not even in 2020, but it will happen. Saquon Barkley‘s star is on the rise. There is a good chance he can become the top running back in the league, in short order. That means eventually the bell-cow back is going to get paid. When the Elliott announcement was made, its a good bet that Barkley’s people started working on the plan for his next contract.

The G-Men face an even tougher battle this week now that Dallas has Ezekiel Elliott back. Hopefully, future negotiations with Saquon Barkley won’t be as difficult.