People have spent the 2022 fantasy football offseason calling Saquon Barkley a trap.
Barkley has worked the past three seasons chasing the high of his short NFL career: finishing as the overall RB1 in PPR formats during his rookie season in 2018. Ever since that season, he has faced challenges, whether the injuries that have sidelined him for portions of each of the last three seasons or the horrific playcalling from Freddie Kitchens, Jason Garrett, and Joe Judge that sapped any upside away from the offense as a whole.
When you put it into context like that, sure, Barkley could feel like a trap going into the 2022 season. But some still believe that he is one of the most talented running backs in the league. With the offensive staff changes around him as well as other ancillary upgrades for the New York Giants, Barkley has a solid chance to not only get back to being an RB1 in your 12-team leagues but to even ascend back to the level he has been chasing: the cream of the crop.
The Injuries
When discussing Barkley, you have the start with the injuries that have held him back over the past few years.
It is important to note that Barkley has suffered numerous ankle sprains in college at Penn State and in the NFL. He had a high-ankle sprain in 2019 that cost him three games, and last year, suffered a low-ankle sprain that caused him to miss four contests. Barkley is a quick healer, though. In 2019, he was running a cutting just a week after his injury, and now during this year's training camp, it looks like he is ready to show that he is fully back. Looking at the tweet below, we've seen numerous training camp videos saying that Barkley looks "explosive," per Jordan Ranaan.
Saquon breaks loose pic.twitter.com/HL8vxVyVEV
— New York Revival (@NewYorkRevival) August 3, 2022
From this and other tweets that we have seen expressing how in shape and in form Barkley has looked this offseason, it appears that he is fully healed from anything that was holding him back post-ACL tear. Now two years removed from that injury, he is ready to get back to his previous form. We have seen other players like Dalvin Cook take a full season to adjust post-ACL recovery and then post breakout numbers in Year 2 post-injury. Let's see what happens with Barkley this year and hope that he adheres to a similar timeline. It's worth noting that there hasn't been any data that suggests that any player’s injury history indicates a likelihood of being injured again at a higher rate in the future.
Offensive Upgrades
This is a huge piece of the puzzle for the New York Giants. As noted above, Kitchens, Garret, and Judge were disastrous for the offensive scheme. Even uglier were the personnel groupings that former GM Dave Gettleman put together. On any given year out of the past few seasons, the Giants have had one of, if not the worst, offensive lines in the NFL. According to Pro Football Focus rankings, the Giants ranked 30th in 2021, and new GM Joe Schoen replaced all but one starter this offseason when he took the job. Our offensive line specialist here at Footballguys, Matti Bitonti, though he ranked the Giants at 32, noted the following in his preseason offensive line rankings:
"Only left tackle Andrew Thomas returns from last year’s group. This fully rebuilt line has added veteran free agent talent in center Jon Feliciano (Buffalo) and right guard Mark Glowinski (Indianapolis). There are also two new rookies in right tackle Evan Neal (First round, Alabama) and Josh Ezeudu (third round, North Carolina). Ezeudu will compete with Shane Lemieux at left guard, and it's not clear who the starter will be on opening day. Some fans of this team will perhaps wonder why this group, which seems greatly improved from last year, still ranks last. The bottom line is that this much change usually does lead to improvement, but this unsettled lineup will likely lead to cohesion problems early."
As Matt noted, Evan Neal is the big addition here. Taken seventh overall in this year's draft, Neal slides into that right tackle role and, alongside Thomas, should immediately help shore up the line. Having both tackles should help Barkley burst through holes much quicker. There is also much room for optimism along the rest of the line. Feliciano and Jamil Douglas have familiarity with new head coach and former Buffalo offensive coordinator Brian Daboll as well. Hopefully, this group meshes together to form a cohesive unit. Our Kevin Coleman touched a little deeper on some of these offensive line additions, you can find those and a similar viewpoint to this article here.
Scheme and Coaching
As mentioned a few times throughout this piece, the coaching and scheme issues have been extremely prevalent over the past five seasons. Some people think the now-infamous boat picture from the bye week before the Giants' last postseason appearance is the culprit for all of the issues since then, and those people could be right. But this more so falls on the failings of Garrett and Judge, who presided over some of the vanilla offensive schemes in the league in their tenure. Over their two-year time, the Giants ranked 31st in yards per game, 24th in rush yards, and 26th in offensive DVOA, according to Football Outsiders.
Now the duo is gone, and Brian Daboll has taken their place as the play-caller of this offense, which can only be good for the Giants as a whole. The Bills' offense has featured a lot of pre-snap motion over the last few years, and with speedsters like Kadarius Toney and Wan'Dale Robinson on the team, they should be utilized heavily to distract teams from Barkley taking a larger role in the passing game. Throughout training camp, Barkley has been seen working more as a receiver, which will be a massive key in his return to elite fantasy production. Barkley has always been a very talented pass-catcher, but the previous regime's inability to scheme him out into space and use motion to distract defenses has hamstrung his true potential.
The Bills' scheme has been extremely successful the past few seasons, particularly in the red zone. The Bills scored a touchdown on over 65% of their red zone trips in 2021, compared to the Giants, who were last at a 45% success rate. Barkley had 13 red zone touches last year and only two goal-line carries, and we should expect that number to jump this season.
Final Thoughts
RB: Saquon Barkley
— Sam Wagman (@swagman95) August 17, 2022
- Daboll is there to upgrade the scheme
- 2 years removed from ACL
- upgraded offensive line
- stacked box rate (3rd in NFL) should help with him splitting out wide in receiving game
At the end of the day, we have to look at how bad the situation has been in New York for the past few seasons. It is a night and day change there this season, both on the field and off, so it is fair to think that Barkley can return to his once-elite productivity. The offensive line must mesh cohesively very quickly, and that should make things easy for him in the early goings, as too many runs were stuffed at or behind the line of scrimmage with the bad offensive line last season. The Giants won't be a supremely competitive team in 2022, and that could also benefit Barkley as the team chooses to play safe dump-off passes to him near the end of games as well. All of these things should come together to show one core truth: Saquon Barkley is ready to return to the elite tier of fantasy football running backs, and you won't regret drafting him this season.