The Last Time Saquon Barkley Made a Decision on Where to Play

Saquon Barkley could see a handful of contract offers this NFL offseason, as he's set to be a first-time free agent. It's been a decade since Barkley has even had the option to field any offers as a football player.

His first ever offer came courtesy of Rutgers University, just 30 minutes down the turnpike from MetLife Stadium.

Barkley had only played one varsity football game when he was offered his first full college scholarship from Rutgers. He just finished his first high school season as a sophomore at Whitehall High School in eastern Pennsylvania in 2012. He was primarily a junior varsity (JV) utility player in his first year under head coach Brian Gilbert.

"At that time, I was at the point where I didn't really think I wanted to play college football," Barkley told The Messenger. When Gilbert encouraged Barkley to attend football camps that summer, Barkley says he told the coach, "Eh, I'm not excited. I don't really care for that. I'm not in the mood right now to try and make it for college football."

The only varsity action Barkley saw that year was as a linebacker on defense in Week 4. Everything else he did was on a JV field. He also lettered in basketball and track and field at Whitehall, but education was his family's top priority.

Gilbert told The Messenger that Barkley played a handful of games at running back and wildcat quarterback for the JV team as a sophomore. But then the highlights from those games were all it took to convince then Rutgers head coach Kyle Flood to offer Barkley a full scholarship. Gilbert says Flood gave the offer to Barkley "on the spot" in their first meeting at a camp.

Gilbert says it changed everything for the young Barkley's priorities.
Still, the nature of the offer raised concerns and suspicions among those in Barkley's circles. He wasn't even the starting running back for his high school team, yet he had a Division I offer. The running back that started ahead of Barkley, one of his best friends James Wah, urged him not to accept.

"They offered to me off of a complete JV highlight tape, and I was like 'I got to commit, I got to commit!'" Barkley said. "But [Wah] was like, 'bro I'm telling you, do not commit, like, who gets offered off of a JV highlight tape?'"

But Barkely bypassed the advice, at least initially, and accepted Flood's offer. He says he went to a few games that year as a commit, watching the program go 6-6 in its last season before officially joining the Big Ten.

"I was 15, going to the campus and going to those games and I thought I was going to be a Scarlet Knight," Barkley said.

But when Barkley actually got on a varsity field as Whitehall's running back that year he started to get plenty more options than what was offered based on JV film.

Barkley received offers from Ohio State, Notre Dame, Syracuse in 2013 and plenty of other suitors. Those programs were in a more favorable positions to compete at the Power 5 level than Rutgers would have been as a newcomer the following year.

Barkley's Rutgers commitment lasted just six months before he de-comitted in February 2014. He went with his home state university Penn State to play under head coach James Franklin. For Barkley, the decision wasn't purely based on football. In fact, out of all the offers Barkley received, the decision to go with Penn State was based around the prospect of a future without football completely.

"I personally felt that if football didn't work out, where would a degree be better from? The alumni at Penn State ... making that decision obviously it worked out for me," Barkley said. "So I made the decision to flip from Rutgers to Penn State, which sucked because I feel like I was going against my word, especially off the team that offered me off of just pure potential."

By making the switch, Barkley saved himself from being part of one of the worst three-year stretches in the history of any Power 5 football program in recent history.

In 2015, Barkley's freshman year, Rutgers limped to a 4-8 record, which resulted in Flood, the man who gave Barkley his first scholarship offer, getting fired at the end of the year. Enter former Ohio State defensive coordinator Chris Ash, who led Rutgers to a 2-10 campaign in 2016 and another 4-8 record in 2017.

Meanwhile, Barkley competed for a Penn State program that went a combined 29-11 and won the Big Ten championship in 2016. Barkley shined as one of the biggest stars in college football, setting program records for most all-purpose career yards (5,538), most career rushing touchdowns (43), most career receiving yards by a running back (1,157), most rushing yards by a freshman and sophomore.

The prospect of him having to work outside of football, which influenced his decision to go with Penn State, became moot for the time being. He shined so brightly in Happy Valley that he became the first running back taken with a top-two overall pick in the NFL Draft, when the Giants took him No. 2 overall in 2018, since Reggie Bush in 2006.

Barkley hasn't been on a dominant team since then, and one of the biggest reason why is because he's had no option otherwise. The Giants earned the privilege of taking him by finishing the 2017 season with a dismal 3-13 record, and had him under contract for his first five seasons. Then they kept him around for a sixth season via use of the franchise tag and a one-year deal last spring.

One way or another, he wasn't going to escape playing for a bad team in New Jersey after going back on his commitment to Rutgers. In Barkley's six seasons with the Giants, the team has gone 34-64 and only made the playoffs once.

If the Giants don't use the franchise tag on him again this year, Barkley will go into his first NFL free agency and weigh offers for the first time since his decision to forego Rutgers for Penn State. But he will be doing it in a very different landscape in terms of the value of his position and at a very different physical state compared to when he made his college decision as a teen.

At 26 years old, Barkley is entering a window in which players at his position often see steep physical declines. Pay for running backs has also declined, with the market reaching a new low last offseason when he, Josh Jacobs and Tony Pollard all had to settle for one-year deals.

Still there are running backs who have managed to peak later in their careers, including Dolphins veteran Raheem Mostert this season. Barkley has been aiming to do set himself up for this through a series of lifestyle changes over the last two years. He says he's specifically looking to emulate the discipline and commitment of Tom Brady late in his career.

Since entering the NFL, Barkley has suffered injuries that have caused him to miss 24 games, including a torn ACL in 2020, and a series of ankle sprains as recently as this year. His desire for self preservation has led him to adopt a plant-based diet over the last two years and all but cut out dairy in favor of plant-based alternatives.

And as Barkley weighs the decision of continuing his career in New York he certainly won't be held down by local delicacies due to that commitment.

Despite being born in the Bronx, living in northern New Jersey throughout his NFL career, and even being teammates with Tommy DeVito this past season, Barkley has stopped eating pizza.

"I've had enough New York pizza throughout my life," Barkley said.