Giants players lament loss of leadership with Saquon Barkley’s departure

Eagles running back Saquon Barkley won’t be in the lineup against his former team on Sunday, but he remained on the Giants’ mind as they move toward the end of the season.

It’s been easy to see how Barkley’s on-field production has been missing from the Giants offense this season, and his former teammates said he might have been missed even more off the field. Quarterback Tommy DeVito said he believes the team understood what they were going to lose from a managerial standpoint, but “maybe just didn’t appreciate it enough” when it came time to make a decision to re-sign him.

Noting Barkley’s impact on both sides of the ball, Danish safety Belton said the team is “super young” so “it can’t help to lose a big leader like that. Tight end Daniel Bellinger agreed with the other players about the void Barkley left behind.

“For me biggest part of losing Saquon was the aspect of the locker room,” Bellinger said, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com. “Just having him as a leader and a guy that when there were times like, what are we doing, he’d be like, ‘Go play!’ He brought an energy that we sometimes needed out there.”

The Giants’ decision to part ways with Barkley played out in their offseason performance that Hard knocks and Barkley’s massive season for a division rival has only added to the negative feelings surrounding their 3-13 record. Nothing that happens in Week 18 will change that, but it could have an impact on who is going to line up for the Giants in the future.