Super Gifted Saquon Barkley Ranked Where on PFN’s Top-100 List?
New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley has continued to insist that while he will be back on the field at some point once his rehab from a torn ACL is completed, he doesn’t know when that will be.
As far as Dalton Miller, author of the Pro Football Network’s Top 100 NFL Players list, is concerned, whenever that is it is, and Barkley is still very much deserving of being included among the NFL’s cream of the crop, .
Miller has Barkley ranked at No. 75 in his list, noting:
Saquon Barkley might be the most physically gifted football player in the world. Nobody his size should be able to move as he can. The knee injury he sustained in Week 2 of the 2020 season affected his ranking going into 2021. I wouldn’t expect the fourth-year player to be down this far on the list heading into 2022.
Barkley wasn’t as big a part of the passing attack in 2019 as he was as a rookie, but offensive coordinator Jason Garrett loves using backs in the passing game. The young runner has insane big-play ability when in space. Using him as a pass-catcher allows him a bit more freedom to use the vast creativity he possesses with the ball in his hands. If the Giants OL improves in 2021 and Barkley’s vision continues to progress, he could end up as a top-three running back in the league this season.
I’m not much for trying to decipher how others come up with their rankings of players league-wide, especially when the rankings aren't necessarily apples to apples given the different positions ranked.
That said, it’s been heartwarming to see the continued respect Barkley, who has appeared in other ranked lists, has received as he works his way back from a devastating torn ACL that required reconstructive surgery.
Whether you agree with the Giants decision to draft him No. 2 overall—and a lot of people to this day still don’t for various reasons, including the decision to skip over a quarterback or even better yet, now-Colts offensive lineman Quenton Nelson, who would have been a significant upgrade to the weakest position group on the team at the time—Barkley has shown that, when healthy, he has a unique skill set that makes him a key cog in moving the chains.
If you still need another reason to root for Barkley’s complete recovery, think about all those times when the Giants' running game was nothing to write home about, which made it too easy for opposing defenses to tee off on the passing game.
A healthy Barkley, who poses a significant threat with the ball in his hands, can ensure the Giants don’t see many stacked boxes from down to down.
That's especially important for an offense that last year struggled to score and to move the ball--and which looked a lot worse without Barkley than it has with him.
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