Saquon Barkley: ‘Hard Knocks’ phone call was ‘a slap in the face’ and picking the Eagles was a ‘no-brainer’

We’ve seen Saquon Barkley’s free agency decision, where he left the Giants for the rival Eagles, play out in the first three episodes of Hard Knocks.

Giants general manager Joe Schoen ultimately did not want to meet Barkley’s price in free agency, instead electing to spend more on the offensive line and on pass rusher Brian Burns. Barkley accepted a three-year, $37.75 million contract with $26 million guaranteed from the Eagles on the first day of free agency, setting aside being a Giant for life — and becoming a Giants enemy.

But Barkley’s only seen one full episode of the show, the most recent episode in which he makes the decision to leave, and some clips from social media.

“I had to watch that one because, you know, the trailer that came out for this one, my Twitter was blowing up and was like, ‘You lie. You lie. Like, we offered you,’” Barkley said on The Athletic’s Scoop City podcast. “I guess the trailer showed Joe saying the numbers, but I think he said ‘If.’ I had to make sure that I wasn’t going to look like a liar.”

» READ MORE: Saquon Barkley tells The Inquirer how adversity-filled years with the Giants helped shape the new Eagles RB

Whether Barkley would stay with the Giants was one of the primary plot threads of the first three episodes of the show — but Barkley told The Athletic’s Dianna Russini that he barely spoke to Schoen and the Giants during the offseason. Barkley said they spoke three times — once just after the season, once in a call that was depicted on the show, and once after he signed in Philadelphia. He joked that the 2023 offseason, which ended in Barkley getting franchise tagged, would have provided a more dramatic storyline. Barkley was frustrated after he was tagged, saying he never got a “fair negotiation.”

“So when they tag me, now they have all the leverage, and it’s just like, ‘OK, I get you have all the leverage and you should do this. You’re doing your job,’” Barkley said. “But at the end of day, can I get some respect, too? Can we get this thing going? Can we find a way, like the same way how you found a way to get DJ [Daniel Jones] done, how you got Dexter [Lawrence] and Andrew [Thomas] done. Could we have found a way to get me done?”

One notable interaction was the phone call between Schoen and Barkley from the second episode of the show, where Schoen told Barkley to go to free agency, see what was out there, and circle back.

“Just mulling over this, the right thing to do is let you test the market to see what your value is,” Schoen told Barkley on the call. “I don’t want to do the franchise thing or all that stuff again. I don’t want to go through that. We’ve both been through that. If you really want to be a Giant for life and you’re interested in coming back, see what your market is and have Ed come back to us and we’ll see if we can come to an agreement.”

» READ MORE: This is the conversation that led to Saquon Barkley hitting free agency — and signing with the Eagles

But Barkley knew from the moment he hung up the phone that he wasn’t returning to the Giants. Barkley said that the Giants’ offer was “disrespectful.”

“It’s kind of like a slap in the face [to say], ‘You go see what you are worth, and then if you’re worth that, we’ll see if you’re worth it, and maybe we’ll match it,’” Barkley said.

“It was over after that phone call, in my opinion,” Barkley said. “I never in my heart truly believed that they were going to match it — or they only wanted me for a lower price. So no matter what, I probably wasn’t going to go back.”

He was so uninterested in the Giants potentially matching one of his offers that his agent pulled a prank on him, telling him the Giants had matched the Eagles’ offer before revealing the truth. He picked the Eagles over two other teams in the process.

“Where can I go to compete for a championship?” Barkley said. “That’s a goal of mine. I want to win a Super Bowl. How far do we want to travel? Can we stay close to home? Let’s think of our family, me and Anna [Congdon, Barkley’s girlfriend], I just moved closer to my family. There was more that went into it. We literally made a list ... and it was a no-brainer. Only con on the Philly side was we might get hate.”

Barkley ended up getting hate, and the way he ultimately handled his departure from the Giants was his only regret in the process.

“I think I downplayed the situation,” Barkley said. “I know I did. My manager, my whole management team, they were just like, ‘This is going to stir some [expletive],’ and I was just like, ‘It’s not that deep; it’s not that serious.’ I didn’t think about the magnitude that it had. I downplayed that, and my manager was like, ‘You’re insane. This is going to be a big deal.’ For me, I’m looking at it from a sane view. ... In the real world, you switch jobs. For me, I was like, ‘People will get it. People will understand.’ But fanatics, fans, no, it wasn’t like that. It was like, ‘You’re a traitor, Snake-quon,’ that one’s hilarious.”

He got a lot of love from Philly and a lot of hate from Giants fans, but Barkley said the hate is only on social media. Barkley composed a goodbye thanking Giants fans but ultimately never released it because of the vitriol, which he said he now feels was “immature.”

But Barkley feels like he ultimately got what he wanted and is ready to move forward.

“That’s in the past,” he said. “I don’t really care about that because ultimately, like, I got tagged, played for the $10 million, and then I end up getting more money. ... At the time, it seemed like it was a disaster. I’m like, ‘Oh man, I gotta do this,’ but in reality, I bettered myself, and I came out on top in that scenario.”