Giants' Saquon Barkley Talks Living His NFL Dream After Homelessness and ‘Comeback’ Kid Tommy DeVito

The running back is currently playing on a one-year contract with the Giants, but he’s hoping to write a new chapter with his hometown team

For a Bronx-born kid to grow up and play for the New York Giants, Saquon Barkley is living his dream.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate another feel-good football story with roots in the Tri-State area — that of one Tommy DeVito.

“I love it,” the 26-year-old running back tells PEOPLE in an interview in conjunction with his new campaign for Intuit Quickbooks. “I love everything about it. Undrafted kid from New Jersey, becoming a starting quarterback for the New York Giants and not just starting, winning football games. So it's a great story, I want to say [it’s] a comeback story. It seems like it has a movie script to it, so hopefully we can continue to keep that going.”

He adds, “And just the energy, the confidence, the swag he plays with the quarterback position definitely helps us as a team on the offensive side of the ball.”

Related: Giants QB Tommy DeVito Talks Living at Home with His Parents in New Jersey: 'My Mom Still Makes My Bed'

Barkley’s appreciation for the third-string quarterback — who he has been known to call "Tommy Cutlets" due to the signal-caller’s love of anything Italian, including its food — is part of his own charismatic appeal.

The sixth-year NFL star attaches a positive attitude to seemingly anything that comes his way, whether it’s battling back from injuries to mulling on his legacy as a football player to reflecting on challenges in his youth.

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“I've had struggles as a child growing up,” he tells PEOPLE. “I've been homeless before, [but] my parents did a really good job of never making us feel like that.”

And while his family struggled, the now-father of two used the experience to change his own narrative — and his story is one that’s all about giving back.

Barkley was recently named the Giants’ nominee (for the second year in a row) for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, the league’s prestigious honor that recognizes players whose impact goes far beyond how many yards and touchdowns they may have.

Barkley's work with Covenant House New Jersey, an organization which gives young people who have faced homelessness and human trafficking shelter and long-term services, has helped to raise $7 million for the nonprofit over the last five years.

“I started working with Covenant House probably my first year in the league and it just started off with me and my mom,” Barkley recalls. “My family was trying to find someone we work with to get tickets to an organization and bring kids and young adults to games, and we started working with Covenant House and then it just grew to something so much more.”

Related: Peyton Manning and the Internet Are Amazed at Giants QB Tommy DeVito's Extremely Italian Agent

He continues, “I can relate to these kids and I can relate to their stories and just having conversations with them and just trying to use my voice to catapult them into the right directions.”

In his new commercial with QuickBooks, Barkley is aiming to amplify the voice of small business owners, with one eye on his own entrepreneurial career once his playing days are over.

“I think right after I'm done playing football, my main goal is going to be to get into TV, whether that's acting, whether that's broadcasting, whether that's being an analyst, I think that's my main focus," he says. "But I've been working with a couple businesses. I've been involved, I've been investing, but I would love to one day have my own business and have a family business that I could be able to call my own, and when I pass away I can give it on to my kids and my kids can give it on to their kids, and create something within our family for a long time.”

For the time being, Barkley is currently playing on a one-year contract with the Giants and will become a free agent at the end of the season, but he’s hoping to write a new chapter with his hometown team.

“I've said it before [and] everyone knows how I feel,” he says. “Obviously I'm well aware of what can happen if you win in New York and the media and basically playing for the biggest city in the world. But for me it really just stems down to the fact that this is a place I was drafted, I had a goal, I had a dream. I'm passionate about it. I want to win here. That's something I want to be able to accomplish before it's all said and done. I want to create a legacy. I want to break records. Those are things I want to do.”

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