Saquon Barkley Reveals He Played Surprising Amount of 2019 Season With a Nagging Injury
By Tyler Kemp
Despite missing three games this season due to an ankle injury, Giants running back Saquon Barkley still had a solid 2019 campaign both on the ground and through the air for Big Blue. In Week 3 of the 2019, Barkley famously suffered a high ankle sprain that kept him out of action.
Just because Barkley was able to return to the field, however, does not mean he was fully healthy the rest of the way. He struggled to shake off the ankle issue, but still managed to post another 1,000-yard rushing season.
On #NYG Zoom call today, I asked @saquon when his ankle finally healed.
— Kimberly Jones (@KimJonesSports) May 13, 2020
His reply: "The ankle felt good after the season, let’s just say that. That’ll be the answer I’ve got for you."
He was smiling.
That means Saquon ran for 766 of his 1003 yds last season on a bum ankle. Wow.
Injuries like this can linger for a while for an NFL player, so we must award kudos to Saquon for still producing despite the pain and discomfort. A high ankle sprain is one of the most difficult seemingly minor injuries to come back from, after all. Barkley was running on a bum ankle and still putting up numbers; imagine what he could have done with a clean bill of health.
With this revelation to Giants fans, Big Blue is now wondering what the future could hold for Barkley after drafting top Georgia lineman Andrew Thomas and having a full offseason to recover.
Imagine what a healthy saquon can do behind a competent o-line...
— Eric “Quentin Quarantino” Feldman ? (@E_Feld) May 13, 2020
Expectations for Barkley will be high in 2020, but playing while hurt in 2019 was truly a valiant effort, and gave the NFL a gimpse at what to expect when the backfield beast is 100% again.