Last year many predicted—myself included—that rookie running back Saquon Barkley would become the new leader of the New York Giants simply by his selfless inspired play.
And one year later, he not only has done exactly that but he doesn’t even remember the guy he used to play with whose initials happen to be OBJ. The same guy people thought may have been the leader before him.
But there is no ghost of Odell Beckham Jr.haunting the New York Giants after the team traded him to the Browns in March, as Barkley says the team has moved on.
“Obviously Odell’s gone, but that trade happened so long ago. We’ve been in the locker room for a really long time without him,” Barkley says.“We’re still doing the same things that we need to do, and I think we’ve even grown more as a team, just going out more, whether it’s getting dinner or doing things like Top Golf and other team activities. I think the locker room is really great, and I think it’s showing on the field.”
The absence of Beckham, Barkley says, is bringing the Giants together. And that’s not a knock on the wideout, who engineered his way out of New York. It seems simply to be an acknowledgment of the reality: the Giants won’t have their most talented pass-catcher in 2019.
Instead they will have a team of wide receivers to replace him.
And the only thing that will help more than the fact that they all seem to know there is no “I” in team, they will also know there is no OBJ in the locker room.
Source: USA Today