Monday’s deadline for franchised players to agree to long-term contracts passed without deals for the New York Giants‘ Saquon Barkley, the Las Vegas Raiders‘ Josh Jacobs and the Dallas Cowboys‘ Tony Pollard.
The three running backs were the only players who received the franchise tag not to have reached a long-term contract and they had until 4 p.m. ET on Monday to get one. They will now have to play the 2023 season on their franchise tenders, worth $10.09 million for running backs. Pollard has already signed his tender. Barkley and Jacobs, however, remain unsigned and stayed away from their teams’ offseason programs.
“It is what it is,” Barkley tweeted Monday.
Because they are unsigned, Barkley and Jacobs cannot be fined for not attending training camp, which begins for veterans on both the Giants and Raiders on July 25. Barkley and Jacobs are not expected to report to training camp with the rest of his team, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Monday. The two unsigned stars would lose money only if they miss regular-season games and forfeit game checks.
The Giants’ contract negotiations with Barkley did not go smoothly from the start. The Giants made an initial offer during the bye week last November that Barkley never seriously considered, multiple sources told ESPN’s Jordan Raanan. The two sides then tabled talks until after the season.
The Giants’ offers to Barkley increased earlier this year, reaching a point where the deal could max out at $14 million per season, sources told Raanan. But the sticking point was guaranteed money and structure. They never got close to his satisfaction.
Once the Giants signed quarterback Daniel Jones just minutes before the start of the new league year, they instantly used the franchise tag on Barkley. This was always one of the options, according to general manager Joe Schoen. At that point, the Giants took their last offer off the table and talks did not seriously pick up until recently.
Barkley admitted this opened his eyes to the reality that this is a business. However, he did not like the tag and how the entire process was portrayed publicly, making it known on multiple occasions that the offers were not always how they were being perceived.
“Me getting tagged, was I upset about it? Nobody wants to get tagged,” Barkley said last month. “To sit here and say I was frustrated, I was mad, I was upset, what really got me upset was the stories that got leaked out, how misleading they were and how untruthful they were. I feel it was trying to paint a narrative of me, a picture of me, that is not even true. Not even close to being the truth.”
Barkley’s contention throughout was the way the money was being perceived made him look greedy. The Giants had never offered near the desired $22.2 million (the combined amount of franchise tags this year and next) as of late last week, a source told Raanan.
Barkley, 26, finished fourth in the NFL with 1,312 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns last season. The 1,312 yards was a career high. He also tied for the team lead with 57 receptions. He has played in 60 career games over five seasons since being the No. 2 overall pick. He has 4,249 rushing yards, 37 total touchdowns and was named Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2018.
The Raiders had presented a deal to Jacobs and he chose not to accept it as he wanted a bigger payday, Schefter reported on Monday.
Jacobs, a first-round pick of the Raiders in 2019, when Jon Gruden was Raiders coach and Mike Mayock was general manager, did not have his fifth-year option picked up last spring by the incoming staff of coach Josh McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler.
Jacobs, 25, surprisingly played in the Raiders’ preseason opener, leading to rumors of his being a trade candidate. Instead, he responded with a career season, leading the NFL in rushing yards (1,653) and yards from scrimmage (2,053) while scoring a career high-tying 12 touchdowns catching 53 passes. His 86-yard walk-off TD at Seattle was the longest run in the NFL last season. He became the first Raiders player to lead the league in rushing since Marcus Allen in his 1985 MVP season.
Jacobs’ production surprised McDaniels, who acknowledged he was used to a running back-by-committee approach in his offensive system. After the season Jacobs insisted he wanted to return to Las Vegas, though, he added, “It’s got to make sense.”
Raiders owner Mark Davis said Jacobs was “the heart of our team” at the NFL’s annual meeting in March. Jacobs, meanwhile, was essentially silent throughout the process, aside from a few cryptic tweets.
“Sometimes it’s not about you,” he tweeted in June, giving the impression he wanted to effect change to a system that financially undervalues the running back position. “We gotta do it for the ones after us.”
The last time a running back signed a long-term contract worth $10 million or more per season was the Cleveland Browns‘ Nick Chubb in 2021 — 716 days ago.
Pollard, 26, will take over the lead running back role this season for the Cowboys after the team released longtime starter Ezekiel Elliott earlier this offseason. He said in May that he expects to be fully ready to practice in training camp after having surgery to repair an ankle injury he suffered in Dallas’ playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers in January.
Two days after the playoff loss, Pollard underwent a “tightrope” procedure instead of a surgery that required screws into the tibia and fibula for a repair. In this procedure, a braided polyethylene cord, rather than a rigid surgical screw, is applied to restore the original position of the bones and to allow for proper healing. He also suffered a fractured fibula, which has healed.
Pollard was named to the Pro Bowl after rushing for a career-high 1,007 yards on 193 carries with nine rushing touchdowns. He also caught 39 passes for 371 yards and three touchdowns. Before last season, he had never had more than 130 carries or 719 rushing yards in a season.
ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez and Todd Archer contributed to this report.