Former agent suggests Giants should've blinked in Saquon Barkley negotiations

At least one NFL analyst suggested the New York Giants should've matched the final asking price presented by running back Saquon Barkley before Monday's deadline for teams to sign franchise-tagged players.

"The Giants should’ve done it if they were offering $13M [per year] in March because that’s a win right there," former agent and current CBS Sports NFL contracts and salary cap expert Joel Corry told Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post. "You were never going to get him for [less than] the guarantees of tagging him twice ($22.2M). It’s a misstep any time you are trying to win the deal rather than finding something both sides can live with. Saquon would’ve been more uncomfortable than the Giants if he got what he wanted [at the end], anyway" 

It was reported last week that the Giants offered Barkley $13M per year and $26M over the contract's first two seasons before they signed quarterback Daniel Jones and then used the franchise tag to retain Barkley's rights in March. 

New York pulled the Barkley offer shortly after tagging him, and Dunleavy reported after Monday's deadline passed that the Giants' final proposal was a three-year deal worth $11M per season with "guarantees between $22M and $23M." 

Dunleavy added at that time that "those numbers were all within $1M to $2M on both ends of Barkley’s reduced asking price" and that "both sides felt that they had budged as much as they could." 

Barkley sounds committed to eventually reporting to the Giants on time to play against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 1 on Sept. 10, and most insiders believe the 26-year-old won't forfeit any of the $10.091M owed to him via the tag by voluntarily missing regular-season games. Barkley can skip training camp practices while avoiding fines by keeping the tag unsigned in an attempt to get the Giants to guarantee they won't tag him in 2024, but Corry indicated a running back may ultimately regret such an agreement. 

"At that position, be careful what you ask for," Corry explained. "That puts a lot of pressure on this year. But if they don’t want to tag him next year then it’s a meaningless gift they could give."

By most accounts, Giants general manager Joe Schoen was always happy to have Barkley play on the tag for the upcoming season and doesn't think the 2018 first-round draft pick will miss a snap of meaningful football due to leaving the tag unsigned.

It's up to Barkley to prove Schoen wrong, but the ball-carrier has millions upon millions of guaranteed reasons not to go down that route before the first "Sunday Night Football" game of the season.