[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbx61yex5whq8aq player_id=none image=https://giantswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
There are several players across the NFL who are coming up on new contracts and at least a few of them may reset the market at various positions. If nothing else, they will be considered substantial deals thrusting certain players toward the top 1% of the league.
NFL.com’s Anthony Holzman-Escareno recently decided to take a look at those players and their potential contracts, compiling the “All-Paid Team of Tomorrow.”
[listicle id=669007]
Unsurprisingly, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers topped the list with a few other gunslingers drawing consideration. But just behind him is New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley, who sits atop his peers at the position.
Holzman-Escareno projects a deal with an APY value of between $15 million and $17 million.
PROJECTED APY: $15M-17M
Health has been Barkley’s lone weakness in the NFL since he was drafted second overall in 2018. That year, he played 16 games, led the NFL with 2,028 scrimmage yards and won Offensive Rookie of the Year. Hall of Famers Eric Dickerson (2,212 in 1983) and Edgerrin James (2,139 in 1999) are the only other players in NFL history to finish with 2,000-plus scrimmage yards as a rookie. Barkley also recorded 91 receptions in ’18, the most all-time by a rookie running back. Since then, though, Barkley has played just 15 games, and he missed the final 14 games last season. Even so, in those 15 games, he produced 1,535 scrimmage yards and eight touchdowns. He’s still been highly productive, but the Giants are surely interested to see how the 24-year-old’s body holds up this upcoming season.
The Saints’ Alvin Kamara took a swing at Christian McCaffrey’s spot on the 2021 All-Paid squad with the extension he signed last year, but Kamara fell a little over $1 million short. A stagnant salary landscape plagued running backs for years, but since 2019, McCaffrey, Kamara, Ezekiel Elliott, Dalvin Cook, Derrick Henry, Joe Mixon and Aaron Jones have signed deals worth at least $12 million per season. Barkley is likely the position’s next hope to raise the salary floor for the league’s top backs. The Giants exercised Barkley’s fifth-year option this offseason, which locks him into his current deal through 2022.
Barkley is currently recovering from a torn ACL and by all accounts, he should be ready to go come Week 1 of the 2021 regular-season. However, Giants treasurer Jonathan Tisch recently pumped the brakes on that and admitted there is no recovery timetable at this point.
Still, if Barkley can return to the field in 2021 and remain healthy, there’s little doubt he would return to his highly productive ways — especially within an offense that is now rich with other playmakers.
As Holzman-Escareno also noted, the Giants have picked up Barkley’s fifth-year option for 2022 and will be in no rush to sign him to a big-money, long-term deal. But if he can string two seasons together similar to his rookie campaign of 2018, then yes… Barkley’s next deal will likely reset the market.