The NY Giants’ worst fears were confirmed on Monday as Saquon Barkley did in fact tear his ACL.
If you were holding out any hope that NY Giants’ runningback Saquon Barkley’s injury wasn’t as bad as it looked like, you can officially stop holding your breath.
While many Big Blue fans were holding out hopes that the team could knock off the Chicago Bears in Week 2 and get back to .500, the Giants could not have gotten off to a worse start as the team was down 10-0 before you could blink; then, the worst possible thing happened — Saquon Barkley went down with a knee injury.
It was pretty clear immediately that the injury was serious as Saquon Barkley couldn’t even put weight on the leg and he was writhing in pain. He was quickly ruled out of the rest of the game and all NY Giants fans could do was pray that it was just a nasty sprain or bruise.
That is not the case.
Via New York Giants on Twitter:
Saquon Barkley underwent an MRI of his right knee that confirmed a torn ACL. Barkley will undergo surgery to repair the injury in the near future.
— New York Giants (@Giants) September 21, 2020
Details: https://t.co/WvPRJsYA9t pic.twitter.com/0tO4stA8wT
This was a pivotal year for Dave Gettleman’s 2018 #2 overall pick, and now, he’ll spend most of it watching from the sidelines as the Big Blue offense just lost its best player.
I, for one, had high hopes for Saquon Barkley with Jason Garrett taking over as offensive coordinator as he figured to be much more creative in his usage of the All-World tailback.
We’ll have to wait until next year at the earliest to get to see Barkley back on the field as the torn ACL will knock him out of the entire rest of the 2020 campaign.
Barkley’s 2020 stats were not pretty as he was only able to run for 34 yards on 19 carries, although that’s obviously an extremely small sample size that was dominated by a Week One effort against the Steelers in which he had no chance due to the horrific play of his offensive line.
But, that’s why so many people have been adamant that Saquon Barkley shouldn’t have been the pick at #2 in the first place as fast forward three years and the NY Giants still don’t have a functional offensive line, among many other things.
Now, Joe Judge and Dave Gettleman will have to take a hard look at the upcoming schedule and this roster and determine how they want to handle things.
Dion Lewis is a nice complementary ‘back, but he’s too small to carry the load for an entire season. Lewis is only signed through this season, as the front office got him on a very team-friendly deal this offseason.
Wayne Gallman has shown glimpses of being a productive NFL player, but he too has shown durability issues and is wrapping up the final year of his rookie contract.
If yesterday was any indication, Gallman isn’t in the team’s future plans as he was a healthy scratch with the team deciding to go with just two runningbacks on the active roster.
If the NY Giants do want to go out and add a runningback to the roster, luckily, there are numerous attractive veteran options on the market that are proven commodities.
Due to the nature of how runningbacks are now valued around the league, it shouldn’t cost Big Blue too much to bring one of those veterans in.
While its pretty clear that the G-Men won’t be Super Bowl contenders in 2020, it’s still too early too completely punt away this season.
You can expect that Gettleman will bring in a number of runningbacks on Tuesday (the day teams usually work out players during the regular season) to get a look at a potential replacement.