Following Derrick Henry and Nick Chubb's contract history on a possible deal for Saquon Barkley

We continue to get closer to the July 17 deadline for the NY Giants and Saquon Barkley. The July 17 deadline is for all NFL teams to reach a possible long-term deal with players who are on the franchise tag, which Barkley was placed with back in March with the Giants.

Since then, the speculation has been whether or not the Giants will be able to get a deal done with their prized star running back. There have been conflicting reports as far as what offers were made from the Giants to Barkley and what was actually turned down or not. In the meantime, the clock continues towards that July 17 deadline. But if you look at the history of some previous running backs, it might give a potential outline for if, and maybe even when, a deal gets done between the Giants and Barkley.

Let's look into those examples of previous running back history that ended up with deals and in this case; Derrick Henry and the Tennessee Titans and Nick Chubb with the Cleveland Browns.

Derrick Henry's contract

Henry has been one of the best running backs in the league since he's taken over as the primary starter in Tennessee. When his contract came up for the Titans back in 2020, the Titans did the same thing that the Giants did; they placed the franchise tag on Henry.

Unlike Barkley, though, Henry signed his tag very quickly into the offseason, but that didn't stop the Titans from working on a long-term deal with their star player and they were able to get one done. On July 15, 2020, the Titans and Henry agreed on a four-year, $50 million deal with $25.5 million guaranteed.

The long-term deal allowed the Titans to spread the money of Henry's deal over the course of those four seasons; seasons in which the Titans were playoff contenders in for the majority of. Henry's tag was for $10.02 million, which is similar to Barkley's tag of $10.01 million. Granted, Barkley has yet to sign the tag and there's been no indications that he looking to.

However, if you look at when Henry signed his deal three years ago, t's very similar to the date of when Barkley would need to sign his, and it could explain a lot of his public comments of not feeling rushed in this process.

If you also look at the money involved in Henry's deal, it's worth $12.5 million over the course of four seasons. It's not clear if the Giants are looking at four years for their running back, but the total value per season is where the comparison is to look at, because that's likely right around where the Giants may want to pay him.

Henry signing his deal with the Titans around that time could give Giants fans a possible glimpse and expectation of if and maybe when Saquon and the Giants could be looking at a finish date to all this, which could be the final week and up to that deadline of July 17.