In what has become even more comical for the Giants, per the New York Post, apparently, it gets even more hilarious.
The Post has early access to Barkley's documentary, which is scheduled to air on Thursday. One of the key points The Post took away from it was Giants owner John Mara declining to Saquon's request for permission to seek a trade.
Perfect Barkley story on how Giants screwed up with the back before Eagles signed him
With the Barkley-Giants negotiations essentially at a standstill, Barkley, in July of 2023, claims to have asked the organization if he could seek a trade.
“I’m not going to do that,” Mara told Barkley. “That makes no sense for us. To be honest with you, it’s not going to be in your long-term best interest to do that. There’s no way that I would allow that at this point. You are too valuable to this franchise.”
Between the back-and-forth, Giants general manager Joe Schoen also informed Barkley that Giants ownership would not grant a trade request and even threatened to go public, as the Giants felt Barkley was "looking like an idiot."
"You sure you think this is the right course of action?” an exasperated Schoen said as Barkley played Madden, hinting that he would want a first- or second-round pick in return. “Think about it for a little bit — the deal that was offered. We had already stretched to put you in very good company over a lot of other backs.”
Despite what seemed to be less than fruitful negotiations, the Giants did offer Barkley a contract that, according to reports, was $2 million apart from a three-year contract with the total amount guaranteed. Later, Barkley signed a three-year, $37.75 million contract with Philadelphia in March 2024, followed by a two-year, $41.2 million contract extension in March 2025.
From a Giants perspective, trading Barkley, coming off a 2022 playoff run, to be fair, didn't make sense. The team recently signed quarterback Daniel Jones to an extension while also re-signing Darius Slayton, Sterling Shepard, trading for Darren Waller, and drafting Jalin Hyatt.
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While history shows that Saquon (and the Eagles) got the last laugh, the deteriorating relationship between the two was obviously not how the Giants wanted it to go. Saquon Barkley's documentary can be viewed on Amazon Prime on Thursday, ironically, before the Eagles take on the Giants on Thursday Night Football.