What Kind of Guaranteed Money is Giants' RB Saquon Barkley Likely to Get?
We know a few things about the contract impasse between the New York Giants and running back Saquon Barkley.
But the biggest thing we don't know, which would shed some more insight into just how far apart the two sides are, is the guaranteed money offered to Barkley in the last know contract offer (the one worth up to $14 million APY).
So let's put on our salary cap to decipher where the hold-up could be and how the Giants might be able to work around it.
Barkley has said multiple times that he doesn’t want to re-set the marketplace for running backs, which is currently $16 million per year earned by Christian McCaffrey of the 49ers.
To "re-set" the market, one might assume that Barkley's deal would have to approach that $16 million APY, though to be frank, the APY can easily be inflated. But we do know that Barkley would like to be respected by the Giants, and there is only one way for that to happen.
The Giants would probably have to get Barkley into a better ballpark as McCaffrey in terms of guaranteed money, the thinking here perhaps being that just as McCaffrey was the bulk of the Panthers' offense when he was healthy (remember he got that big contract extension before Carolina traded him to the 49ers), so too was Barkley for the Giants when he's been healthy.
So what kind of numbers are we talking about?
Figuring Out Guaranteed Money
We first need to clarify that there is a difference in guaranteed money, specifically "fully guaranteed" and "guaranteed at signing."
"Fully guaranteed" means that the player gets the money per the schedule outlined in the contract, no matter what. This is what we saw with Kenny Golladay this year. Golladay had a fully guaranteed roster bonus that he collected even though the Giants terminated his contract.
"Guaranteed" money, on the other hand, has to meet any conditions outlined in the contract's schedule. So, for example, If Daniel Jones is on the Giants roster in 2026, he will collect a $500,000 roster bonus. If he is not, the amount gets credited back to the Giants' cap for that season.
The question with Barkley is, what percentage of his deal does his agent want to be fully guaranteed versus simply guaranteed if he's on the roster? No agent worth his or her weight in salt will allow a client to sign a megadeal with anything less in terms of fully guaranteed money than the sum of the net two franchise tag amounts for that position.
In the case of Barkley, the sum of the 2023 and 2024 franchise tags comes to $23.27 million.
But agents don't stop there, nor should they. There is always a percentage added on top of the sum of the next two franchise amounts.
Jones’s combined franchise tag amount would have been $70.524 million for 2023 and 2024. The Giants gave him that plus 0an additional $10.476 million in guaranteed money, putting Jones 14.86 percent over the franchise sum.
They did the same thing with Dexter Lawrence. The 2023 and 2024 franchise tag total for defensive tackles is $39.815 million. Lawrence received an additional $6.685 million on top of that, or 16.7 percent more. (Note Lawrence's number was skewed because the 2023 franchise tag was more than the option year of his rookie deal under which he would have played had there been no long-term deal.)
Based on these numbers, it looks like general manager Joe Schoen is only willing to tack on an additional 15 percent over the sum of the franchise tags for the next two years. That amount comes to roughly $26.76 million for Barkley, which probably won't cut it if that's true.
The CMC Factor
When Barkley spoke to reporters last week at his youth football camp, he spoke about wanting to be respected but not necessarily re-setting the market. So one can't help but wonder if his agent is using McCaffrey's numbers for guaranteed money as a driving point.
Based on figures from Over the Cap, McCaffrey had a whopping 46.9 percent of his original four-year, $64 million contract extension that he signed with the Panthers guaranteed.
But that $30.062 million guaranteed by the Panthers is 62.9 percent more than what the sum of the 2020 and 2021 franchise tag amounts for the running back position would have been.
That percentage over is an exception because, thanks to the pandemic in 2021, the salary cap per club dropped from over $200 million to $182.5 million--and with it, the franchise tag amounts dropped.
So could it be that Barkley, who, like McCaffrey, represented the bulk of the Giants' offense when healthy, wants a little larger piece of fully guaranteed money than the 15 percent average the Giants have been working with so far this year?
It's certainly a possibility.
No Panic Yet
Although some people are panicking as to whether a deal will get done n time, ESPN's Jeremy Fowler reported that this hasn't been the case (h/t Bleacher Report).
There's no real movement on a contract yet but neither side is panicking because they have about a month until that July 17 training camp deadline. Barkley is due to make $10.1 million. He wants more security on a long-term deal. I'm told his asks have been pretty reasonable. He just wants a good structure and a guarantee. He doesn't want flimsy guarantees, and he wants something that will pay him out in the first couple of years as, you know, a well-accomplished back and Pro Bowl-type player. The Giants ownership really values Barkley. They see him as a potential Giant for life, so could step in to try to get something done closer to the deadline.
This comes as no surprise as both sides will continue to talk in order to inch closer to getting what the other wants and in finding a happy medium.
So What Will It Take to End This Impasse?
If Barkley is looking for what McCaffrey got over the sum of the two franchise tag amounts, that's unlikely to happen.
The Giants can easily argue against offering 20 percent or more above the franchise total on two points. One, they are 19-40-1 in regular-season games with Barkley in the lineup.
Two, and more importantly, what happened in the past isn’t as relevant as what’s to come, as the Giants hope that the additional playmakers they added will help shoulder the load on offense, thereby taking to onus off the running back.
There is also the possibility that the Giants might be looking to scale back on the pounding Barkley takes. While he will still be RB1, will the Giants have him on the field for at least 80 percent of the snaps on offense as he did in 2018 (83 percent), 2019 (84 percent), and 2022 (80 percent)?
(And before you say "yes," the Giants intend to reduce the workloads of Lawrence and Leonard Williams on defense so that they don't take a pounding that leaves them limping down the stretch. Who's to say they won't do the same with Barkley.)
What needs to happen is the Giants should begin by putting the last offer back on the table as there’s no way at this point Barkley will accept the first offer presented to him back during the bye-week.
And the two sides need to meet somewhere in the middle regarding the guaranteed money.
There are a few ways to do this based on the contract structure. First, if the Giants are looking for a three-year deal with an out after two and have structured the third year to include a roster bonus that isn't fully guaranteed, perhaps swap that out with some "Not Likely to Be Earned" (NLTBE) incentives that are reachable for Barkley.
The benefit is that NLTBEs don't count against the current year's cap; they get pushed into the following year's books only if the player reaches the levels set in the previous season.
For example, offer Barkley an NLTBE incentive if he reaches 1,350 rushing yards this season (he reached 1,321 last year. Offer another NTLBE incentive if he rushed for touchdowns, which would be two more than he rushed for last year.
The idea is to offer several reachable NLTBEs that if the Giants wish to move on from Barkley after Year 2 of a three-year deal, they can do so while pushing the cap liability from the NLTBE incentives into the following year's cap, a liability that will be off-set by the cap savings if they move on from him.
And by taking this approach, the Giants, who don't have much cap space at the moment, can ease any further stress on their cap.
The Bottom Line
The Giants have said that they want Saquon Barkley for the long term, and Barkley has reciprocated the sentiment. But the deal has to be right for both sides so that Barkley gets his payday and the Giants don't screw up future caps.
The good news is that the two sides reportedly continue to talk, though to expect an agreement to happen before the July 17 deadline is unlikely for the simple reason that Barkley's agent probably wants to make sure no money is left on the table while the Giants don't feel the pressure given that they hold all the cards.
Let's hope that the two sides strike up a deal so that come late July, when the team hits the field for training camp, they do so with one of their best players and team leaders happy and raring to go. Here are some ideas on how the Giants might be able to close the contract gap with Saquon Barkley.
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