Saquon Barkley had an underwhelming 2019 season stat-wise for his caliber. Can he bounce-back in 2020 and light up the NFL?
The 2019 NY Giants season was underwhelming in many regards; 2018 #2 overall pick, Saquon Barkley, surely falls under that category. Even though most other runningbacks would have been thrilled to have the type of campaign he had, Barkley is held to a higher standard, and for good reason.
Respectably, no one has been harder on themselves on the matter than Saquon Barkley himself. The second-year phenom ‘back was undoubtedly slowed by a high-ankle sprain in Week 3 against Tampa Bay and a porous offensive line that left him few holes to run through.
Will those problems be corrected heading into a pivotal 2020 season? For starters, Saquon seems fully healthy and recovered from his nasty ankle sprain. However, the offensive line issues have still not been addressed which has to worry those rooting for Barkley to have a monster 2020 campaign (all of us).
The former Penn State star just barely inched over the 1,000-yard mark by 3 yards in 13 starts in 2019. Coming back from his injury as fast as he did and playing through his pain in a lot season has to be respected as most guys in his spot would have shut it down for much longer.
Barkley still ran for an impressive 4.6 yards-per-carry average although he still leaned too heavily on explosive plays. In the red zone, he sometimes struggled to get the tough short yards and breakthrough into the end zone.
He was also slowed in the receiving game, which we can all only hope has more to do with Pat Shurmur’s failure to make him a focal point — something that drove almost every Giants fans nuts last season.
Barkley reeled in just 52 passes for 438 yards and two receiving touchdowns — down from 91-721-4 in his electric Rookie of the Year campaign. Stunningly, even though the NY Giants were down early so often, Shurmur didn’t elect to feed Saquon the rock behind the line of scrimmage to attempt to get Big Blue back in games.
Let’s take a deeper dive into where the team has improved this offseason and what Saquon Barkley’s 2020 season could look like from a statistical perspective.
The Jason Garrett effect
While new offensive coordinator Garrett has been lauded for his extensive successes leading quarterbacks to monster seasons, he hasn’t been far behind in terms of getting the most out of his runningbacks, either.
Garrett famously coaxed an MVP season out of Demarco Murray a few years back and has shown he can play to the strengths of a phenom talent like Saquon with Ezekiel Elliott since 2016. In four seasons with Garrett as his head coach, ‘Zeke ran for over 5400 yards and 40 touchdowns to the tune of a 4.6 average.
The underrated offensive coach also found a way to turn Elliott into a monster threat in the receiving game, something many didn’t think was possible. He accomplished these things by playing to Elliott’s strengths and having a solid track record of running a competent blocking scheme, two things we have not seen over the past two years since Barkley was drafted.
Garrett has to be licking his chops to get the chance to work with Barkley and it’s likely we see the best Saquon we’ve ever seen under the new coach.
The long-time Cowboys head coach was able to make ‘Zeke look every bit like the #4 overall pick he was — here’s to hoping he does the same thing with Saquon Barkley.
Offensive line
The NY Giants have been criticsized for failing to address the offensive line in free agency despite rolling into the 2020 offseason with over $80M to spend. The good news is, Big Blue still has the #4 overall pick to work with and two top 36 picks. Hopefully, the team uses at least one of them on an offensive tackle or center.
If that’s the case, Saquon Barkley will already be running behind a much better offensive line than he did in 2019. Nate Solder has been the Achilles heel of the struggling group and it’s possible that sliding him over to right tackle, combined with the coaching of Marc Colombo will help fix some of his issues.
Former center (hopefully) Jon Halapio was brutal as the team’s starting center which surely doesn’t help out a runningback. A center is often the linchpin of an offense’s rushing attack, and Halapio could barely find success at the first level of attack, let alone the second level where Barkley flourishes.
Promising youngster, Nick Gates, has been rumored to be working on taking snaps from the center position, and if that was to work out Big Blue would be in a fantastic position. Without knowing if that can be the case, the team is currently two offensive lineman short of having a strong group.
Saquon would have to put up a herculean effort to put together a monster season behind this group as it stands.
Official 2020 stat predictions:
Rushing: 1400 yards, 4.8 YPC, 11 TD’s
Receiving: 70 receptions, 650 yards, 6 TD’s
Saquon Barkley gets back into the ‘elite’ discussion with 2,050 total yards and 17 TD’s here. I would expect my predictions will jump even higher should Big Blue be able to land a promising tackle and/or center in the 2020 NFL draft later this month.