Giants safety reacts to Eagles' Saquon Barkley apparent troll of John Mara

In an ad released this week, Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley seemed to troll New York Giants co-owner John Mara about what has become a famous comment Mara made last offseason. 

Ahead of this Sunday's game between the 3-13 Giants and 13-3 Eagles, New York safety Jason Pinnock made it known he has no problem with the Barkley spot. 

"I didn’t see that," Pinnock told Darryl Slater of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com. "That’s funny. That’s funny. Look, hey, marketing. Great marketing. That was dope." 

During an episode of the "Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants" program that aired this past summer, Mara was shown saying following the 2023 season he'd have "a tough time sleeping" if Barkley signed with Philadelphia. In a promotional video for sleep-aid company Unisom that went viral on Thursday, Barkley joked that it must be "tough" for unnamed individuals "to lose sleep over football." He also pointed out he was "gonna sleep like a baby" ahead of Sunday's game that he'll watch from the sidelines because the Eagles are locked into the No. 2 seed for the NFC portion of the playoffs.

A Thursday story noted how at least some current New York players believe "Barkley's presence in the locker room was underestimated by the Giants' brass" before general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll let the ball carrier reach free agency last March. While Pinnock shared the Big Blue locker room with Barkley across the 2022 and 2023 campaigns, they first met long before they made it to the NFL. 

"I’m happy for him, bro," Pinnock said about Barkley becoming the overall betting favorite to earn Offensive Player of the Year Award honors for the season. "In this league, for us, that’s family. That’s a brother. I’ve been going to pool parties with him since (expletive) 2016. That’s a friend of mine. We’re close. His best friend is my best friend from high school, Jarvis Miller. The football world is a fraternity, man. It’s real small. We always wish the best. We always wish each other health and prosperity."

Pinnock also praised Barkley for putting the team first this weekend even though the 27-year-old is just 101 rushing yards shy of breaking the single-season record that Eric Dickerson set during the 1984 campaign. Imagine how much sleep Mara would lose if Barkley gets his hands on the Vince Lombardi Trophy in February.