Giants’ Saquon Barkley puts NFL on notice: ‘F–k everybody’
Saquon Barkley is putting everyone on notice as he prepares for his second season removed from a torn ACL.
“Last year was more like, ‘Dang, the game was taken away from me.’ I never had a season where I didn’t go and play football,” the Giants running back told the “2nd Wind” podcast. “Now, it’s a kill mindset. Now it’s like, you know what? F—k everybody. I’m ready to go crazy.”
Barkley has been the target of criticism ever since the Giants made him the No. 2 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, under the notion that it was too high of a pick to use on a running back.
After tearing his ACL in Week 2 of the 2020 season, Barkley struggled to produce on a dreadful Giants team last season, rushing for 593 yards and two touchdowns, adding 41 catches for 263 yards and two more scores.
Critics have wondered if Barkley would ever be the same.
“Do I feel like I’m back? I feel like I’m better, to be completely honest,” Barkley said on the podcast. “I’m older now, I’m 25. I’ve been through some stuff, ups and downs. Now I’m in a situation where, you know me, I always have the mindset of always being counted out. But now it’s actually here, it’s actually real. People are really counting me out. People are trying to write me off.
“I don’t really do it for the pleasure for others or making other people satisfied. I do it because I just want to be great. But now I have that extra motivation, the extra motivation to push me to go out there and kind of just be like, shut everyone up.”