Talking heads say the Giants were idiots. The data disagrees
Author’s Disclaimer: Yes, this is a football story — not a list of data best practices or SQL tips. But it’s also a case study in how narratives snowball and how data can help keep us grounded. Sometimes the most satisfying conclusions are the least obvious ones!
Full disclosure here — it’s important that I acknowledge my bias as a diehard Giants fan. As in, if my sweet Italian mother started rooting for the Eagles, we probably wouldn’t be on speaking terms anymore. But while it is impossible for me to be objective on this topic, I also like to think I’m typically pretty critical of my favorite team when I need to be.
There’s no getting around the fact that the Giants have been putrid for most of the last decade plus. Their draft picks have largely whiffed, their free agent signings have been mostly disastrous, and their decision making has been questionable at best. However, when it comes to one of their most prominent decisions of the last few years — the non-signing of Saquon Barkley — the media at large has missed the mark.
That is to say, the Giants made the correct move in letting Saquon walk. Personal bias aside, I find that this entire saga represents a perfect example of how a narrative can become so divorced from the story the numbers actually tell. By taking a step back and examining the data, we can see that reality is not so black and white.
Yes, Saquon is a great player.
Yes, the Giants likely would have been a better team had he been on their roster.
But would the Giants have made the playoffs?
Would Saquon have come anywhere close to breaking the NFL single season rushing record wearing blue?
Almost certainly not.
So with that, cut Joe Schoen some slack… and let’s dive in!
Point 1: Running Backs Matter — but the O-Line Matters More
If you paid attention to sports media over the last year, you know that the narrative around the Giants typically went something like this:
- The Giants, a terrible team, decided not to retain Saquon Barkley in the 2024 offseason
- Saquon Barkley played at an MVP Level in 2024
- Therefore, not re-signing Saquon was an inarguably atrocious decision, and the Giants would have been in a much better position with him on the team
Implicit in this argument is the following assertion: an elite running back provides elite production regardless of the cast around him.
One way we can test this idea is by examining the correlation between overall offensive line play and rushing efficiency (with yards per attempt as a basic proxy).
It is notoriously difficult to grade OL play, but NFLLines.com has a great aggregate metric. For more details on the calculation, please visit their website!
While this is far from PhD level statistical analysis, the general trend here is clear and obvious — teams with better offensive line play tend to have a more efficient running game. You might say, “duh” … but that point really matters. For a team with a great Offensive Line, a fairly average running back might look like a super star. Conversely, you can’t drop a great running back into a broken offense and expect him to fix the team.
For a team that simply can’t block — even Saquon Barkley will look pedestrian.
Point 2: Same Runner, New Runway — How the Transition from NYC to PHI Illustrates the Importance of Context
Which brings us to the next point. The fascinating thing about this discussion is that we don’t have to just imagine what Saquon might have looked like on the Giants. We can take his 2023 season with largely the same supporting cast, and compare that to his scintillating 2024.
If the above argument were true, his performance should be markedly different. And as a matter of fact, it is.
The differential in YBC per Attempt helps to illustrate the dominance of PHI’s offensive line
One of the easiest ways to see the importance of the offensive line in the running game is by comparing yards earned before and after contact (also referred to as YBC and YAC respectively). This is a bit of an oversimplification, but broadly speaking — the line deserves a lot of credit for YBC, while YAC is all on the running back. Better offensive lines open up bigger holes, which means that the running back can get further before a defender touches him.
If we look at Saquon’s performance in 2023 vs 2024 one thing clearly stands out — yards earned after contact per attempt did not change at all, while yards earned before contact literally doubled.
Despite what all the hot takes might lead you to believe, once a defender got a hand on him, Saquon was pretty much the same guy.
What changed year to year is the distance Saquon was able to travel before that contact. Remarkably, in 2024 Saquon rushed for almost as many yards before contact per attempt as he did for yards in total per attempt in 2023.
This does not mean that Saquon isn’t a good player. What it does show us, though, is another example of why context is so important in this discussion. Unless the Giants were able to drastically revamp their O-Line year to year, paying Saquon would have meant allocating assets to a position that the team was not able to take full advantage of.
Said differently:
The Eagles were in the privelege of being one luxury asset away from winning it all. The Giants most certainly were not.
Point 3: Running Back is a Fairly Replacable Position
The final piece of the puzzle here is the replacability of the running back position itself. In letting go a superstar like Saquon, one might expect that the Giants would experience a precipitious drop-off in rushing performance. In other words, it’s one thing to suggest that a good running back becomes great behind a phenomenal offensive line. But what about when you go from a good running back to a rookie mid-round draft pick and the offensive line remains below average?
Shouldn’t things get worse?
2024 Tracy produced fairly similar numbers for less than 10% of the cost
Of course, I am not naive enough to suggest that Saquon Barkley and Tyrone Tracy are equivalent players talent wise. But while it is important to note that the Giants offensive line was actually slightly improved in 2024 (note the bump in YBC / attempt), we’re still looking at a nearly equivalent performance between an all-pro and a fifth round pick. So what gives?
Unlike at QB, the majority of starting RBs in the NFL are not drafted in Round 1
The dirty secret of the NFL is not that teams don’t care about running the ball, but that they know they can find close to replacement level production at non-premium draft positions. Every year the league replenishes rushing production from the middle of the draft. In 2024 only five team rushing leaders were Round 1 picks, nine were Round 2, seven were Round 3, four were Round 4, five were Round 5, and two were undrafted. That distribution is the market telling you the position is plentiful.
The cost gap is massive too. Top backs earn $10-$16M per year, while Day 2 and Day 3 starters might earn less than $1M. In a salary cap constrained league, every dollar spent is a dollar that cannot be allocated elsewhere — so those savings are massively valuable.
What NFL teams understand is not that running backs are worthless, but that paying a premium for the position is a luxury, not a necessity. The Giants read that signal and acted accordingly.
Before you close this to send me an angry DM, I want to say this one more time — the point of this post is not that “running backs don’t matter.” It’s that rushing production is context-driven, and replacement talent is easier to find than at other positions. The truth is that in 2024, the Giants needed foundational pieces — not a sports car. In that specific roster context, letting Saquon walk wasn’t another typical gaffe, it was a shrewd and analytical decision.
So by all means — make fun of the Giants for any one of a million things but leave this one off the list!
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