The more Hard Knocks we watch, the more obvious it becomes that Joe Schoen, general manager of the NY Giants, wasn’t pleased with how things had previously worked out with Saquon Barkley. While NY allowed Barkley to explore the free agent market, they had made attempts to close deals with No. 26 in the past.
Barkley was supposedly presented with several options by Schoen before the previous season, but none of them were in the area he was seeking. In March, Schoen had an emotional chat with Barkley to inform him that he would not be franchise tagged. However, Schoen wasn’t happy with the situation overall, as seen by his communication with Giants Senior Director of Football Communications Dion Dargin.
The Giants ultimately placed the non-exclusive franchise tag on Barkley for the 2023 season, which the Pro Bowl running back was not happy about. He ultimately signed a revised tag deal, which provided more money in potential incentives. This offseason, Schoen claimed the franchise tag was still on the table for Barkley, but as we all know, that didn’t work out. Joe Schoen appeared quite frustrated with how talks with Saquon Barkley went. “I understand he doesn’t want to be franchised (tagged). I wanted to give him a lot of money a year ago and he didn’t want that. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
