Giants’ Week 1 performance makes Saquon, Martindale decisions look even worse for now

(Editor’s note: This is excerpted from Mike Sando’s Pick Six of Sept. 9, 2024.)

Two of the New York Giants’ biggest offseason moves — a messy divorce from defensive coordinator Wink Martindale and letting Saquon Barkley leave in free agency — made the team’s football leadership vulnerable to damaging narratives in a potential make-or-break season.

To say those vulnerabilities surfaced in Week 1 would be an understatement.

Coach Brian Daboll’s clashes with Martindale precipitating the coordinator’s resignation in January raised the stakes if the defense fell off.

“The narrative there can’t be that their defense took a step back without Wink, because if that happens, the media is going to say, ‘See, the head coach is unable to do this, that and the other,’” an NFL exec said in March.

While the Giants’ offense was primarily responsible for the 28-6 loss to Minnesota on Sunday, the defense struggled at times to stop a journeyman bridge quarterback. Watching Darnold complete nearly 80 percent of his passes for 8.7 yards per attempt was not helpful, especially after Barkley rushed for 109 yards and scored three touchdowns for the Eagles on Friday in Philadelphia’s victory against Green Bay.

“I’ll have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia, I’ll tell you that,” Giants owner John Mara told general manager Joe Schoen in March with the “Hard Knocks” cameras recording. “Just being honest. I’ve been around enough players. He’s the most popular player we have by far.”

Cameras later showed an unhappy Mara leaving Schoen’s office when news broke that Barkley indeed was signing with the Eagles. Owners care which players are most popular with fans. GMs draw philosophical lines on issues such as paying top dollar for running backs who are 27-plus years old and carrying heightened injury risk.

I wished cameras had captured the discussion a year earlier when the Giants decided to pay quarterback Daniel Jones. Who pushed hardest for that deal? I also wondered how the Barkley situation might have played out in the absence of cameras.

“My feel is John Mara, if not for Hard Knocks, would have put his foot down (to stop Barkley from leaving), but he didn’t want to be perceived as meddling,” an exec from another team said.

These are the internal machinations that make the game off the field as interesting as the game on it.

“The owner is thinking, ‘Barkley has been one of our best players for years, the players on the team respect him and I don’t want him to beat us twice,’” another exec said. “But the fact of the matter is, the Giants aren’t very good and they may lose to Philly twice anyway.”

(Photo of Daniel Jones: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)