Ralph Vacchiano | Facebook | Twitter | Archive
Saquon Barkley is among the Giants' most precious commodities, and after not practicing all week against the Lions, they certainly won't risk him in the preseason game in Detroit on Friday night.
The truth is, they shouldn't risk him in the rest of the preseason at all.
There simply is no point, not with a player as important as Barkley, and not with a body part as tricky as a hamstring. The Giants are calling his injury a "mild strain" and even privately they seem convinced that it's not at all serious. But hamstring injuries have a way of lingering and recurring as soon as they're pushed.
Just ask Odell Beckham Jr., who suffered a minor hamstring injury in the spring of his rookie season. It was supposed to be nothing, so he pushed it … and kept pushing it … and ended up missing most of the spring, almost the entire summer, and the first month of the season, too.
Not that Barkley's hamstring injury is believed to be as bad as Beckham's was. But the point is that Beckham's hamstring injury back then wasn't supposed to be bad at all.
"Like I told him, just take your time," Beckham said after Giants practice on Thursday morning. "There's nothing you need to prove to any of us. There's nothing you need to prove to anybody. You know what you're capable of. I know what you're capable of. We know what you're capable of. It's just about getting healthy."
More specifically, it's just about getting healthy by Sept. 9, when the Giants open their regular season - and by the way, that's only 23 days away. Sure, as a rookie, there are probably a few things Barkley could gain by playing a couple of preseason series. Maybe he'll get some insight into reading defenses or reacting to NFL speed.
Then again, he's pretty smart and spectacularly talented and most likely will be OK if all he does is practice and go to meetings. After all, that's what Beckham did for about five months before he finally made his NFL debut on Oct. 5, 2014. The result of that was that he started slow - only 10 catches for 106 yards and three touchdowns in his first three games.
Of course, he finished his rookie season with an unbelievable 91 catches for 1,305 yards and 12 touchdowns in just 12 games and was the NFL's Offensive Rookie of the Year.
But let's face it - the Giants got lucky with Beckham because with the way they botched his injury it could've been much worse. They pushed him too far in the spring and summer. Then-coach Tom Coughlin had a low tolerance for injuries, especially with rookies, so he constantly complained that Beckham was sidelined, which ignited a circular pattern where Beckham would push himself to get back on the field and almost immediately make his hamstring worse.
It started at the June minicamp, after Beckham had missed most of the offseason program. He tried to run full speed, immediately felt his hamstring pull, and the trainers backed him down. It happened again at his first practice of training camp, which cost him another few weeks even though Coughlin went public with his frustration a few days later. By mid-August, Beckham was ready to try a full practice, but as soon as he went full speed, he pulled up and grabbed his right hamstring again.
Amazingly, Coughlin declared that day that "I don't think Beckham hurt himself" and he refused to call it a "setback". But Beckham missed the rest of training camp, all the preseason games, and the first four games of his rookie year.
Yes, everything worked out fine for Beckham. But the lesson isn't that Barkley should push through it and risk that he'll be out longer. The lesson is that maybe for the real special rookies, preseason action is a little overrated. Maybe for the real special rookies it's a little more important to keep them healthy. The only thing that should matter to the Giants is that Barkley is on the field on Opening Day.
Again, just ask Beckham. He knows.
"I kind of can give him some insight on what I went through," Beckham said. "But at the same time, I still have to step back because it's his journey and you have to let him make his decisions. … He wants to be out there. He's always been a guy who works hard. He's going to be good come September 9th, and that's all that really matters now."