Tuesday is the first day NFL teams can place a franchise or transition tag on prospective free agents, keeping them off the open market. Let’s not expect the New York Giants to rush to tag running back Saquon Barkley, at a cost of $12.1 million, for a second straight year.
Teams have from Feb. 20 to March 5 to tag players. Giants’ GM Joe Schoen has said that he will negotiate with Barkley’s new agent, Ed Berry of Creative Artists Agency (CAA) during the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis next week. The Combine wraps up on March 4.
So, how is this going to play out?
To try and figure that out, or at least take an educated guess, we have to begin by reviewing how we got here.
The Giants and Barkley were in this spot a year ago. The Giants used the $10.1 million tag on Barkley and the two sides negotiated right up until the final hours of the July 17 deadline to reach a multi-year contract before falling short.
Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post reported at the time that the Giants’ final offer was a three-year deal worth $11 million annually with guaranteed money between $22 and $23 million. Dunleavy’s reporting was that the two sides, with Berry having been added to Barkley’s negotiating team late to work with Kim Miale of Roc Nation, finished $2 million or less apart in both average annual value and guaranteed money.
