Saquon Barkley drew plenty of attention for the wrong reason when the New York Giants opened with a loss. He only had six rushing yards, leaving Daniel Jones as the team’s leading rusher after the first game. The performance drew some interesting words from former Giants back Tiki Barber, who said Barkley’s blocking is a liability. He also said Barkley shouldn’t be on the field for third down, due to that blocking problem.
More recently, however, Tiki expanded on his comments. He also spoke about what Barkley will have to do to get over some current problems. According to him, it’s something the running back needs to work out with his coaches.
Barkley’s problem is one for coaches to fix
When asked about whether or not he was going to reach out to Barkley to offer help, Barber said no. He also explained his reasoning – back during his own career, working with his coaches worked better for him.
“I hearken this back to when I had fumbling issues and a media member sat down with me and said ‘Tiki, you have a fumbling problem and I’m going to write about it.’ And I was like ‘what the hell are you talking about?’ He made me aware of it,” Barber told CBS Sports.
“I wasn’t even thinking about it or really aware of it. It was alarming, but it rose my awareness about it and made me self-conscious about it. I didn’t know how to fix it and it continued for a couple years until Tom Coughlin and my RB coach Jerald Ingram came in. You need your coach to help you do that. It would be wrong for me to try and help Saquon fix this. It’s his coach’s job to fix it just like it was Jerald Ingram’s job to fix my fumbling issue.”
The Giants have a good staff in place to help Barkley improve on his week one performance. Jason Garrett is known for having worked well in Dallas with Ezekiel Elliot, while running backs coach Burton Burns has a track record of working with NFL caliber players at Alabama.
With Barkley only racking up six yards in the opener, the Giants will surely focus on changing up their running game in week two and getting him better chances. That, though, isn’t entirely in Barkley’s hands. Regardless of how well Barkley studies between weeks, the offensive line will have to provide more openings for the result to change for the better against Chicago.