Saquon Barkley taking next step as Giants arrive for joint practices with Browns

CLEVELAND — Don’t expect Saquon Barkley to participate in the full-team periods of this week’s joint practices with the Cleveland Browns.

But don’t expect the Giants’ running back to sit idly by, either. Giants coach Joe Judge put Barkley in 7-on-7 drills wearing a non-contact pinnie on Tuesday in East Rutherford, the most work Barkley has done to date.

The plan is to steadily increase his workload here on Thursday and Friday, even if Judge won’t subject him to the Browns’ full force.

“I wouldn’t plan on putting him in 11-on-11 at this point. We’ll see if there’s something else we can slide him into drill-wise,” Judge said Tuesday before his team flew to Cleveland on Wednesday afternoon.

“At this point, until the doctors give me the green light, I’m not going to throw him into any live contact drills or anything of that nature,” the second-year coach added. “We want to be careful as we go through it. But we just have to keep on pushing his body.”

The Giants’ regular season opener is 24 days from Thursday, so the clock is ticking to get Barkley’s body ready for real football if he is going to suit up in Week 1.

He has looked pretty good while running so far on his repaired right ACL, but Judge and the medical staff have not let him do much because they want to avoid a setback.

If Barkley is able to steadily climb towards some real football reps at next week’s joint practices in New England, it could instill confidence that he might contribute right out of the gate.

So far, though, Barkley’s rehab has moved at an extremely cautious pace. There has been no indication yet that he’ll be able to turn it loose in Week 1.

That makes every day, including the next two days’ practices in Cleveland, important in monitoring his trajectory toward a hopeful 100% recovery for game action.

Gettleman backs picking backs

Giants GM Dave Gettleman said Tuesday that he would pick Barkley No. 2 overall in the 2018 NFL draft all over again. He also contended that it is false that running backs have shorter shelf lives than players at other positions on average.

“I don’t know that that’s true,” the GM said. “You can talk about injuries at any position. I would not make a different decision than I made in 2018, plain and simple.”

Gettleman had options to move back and get OG Quenton Nelson or edge Bradley Chubb. He could have taken Sam Darnold, future MVP Lamar Jackson or future MVP candidate Josh Allen at QB. But he drafted Barkley right behind the Browns’ No. 1 overall pick, Baker Mayfield.

Much was made Tuesday of Gettleman saying that he would negotiate a player contract in-season, with Barkley due for a contract extension. But that is not news. The Giants gave contract extensions to Graham Gano and Logan Ryan midseason in 2020.

“Stuff happens, not everything’s perfect, and there are guys all over this league who get hurt, big-time players,” Gettleman said, defending the Barkley pick despite the running back missing 17 of the Giants’ 48 games in his first three seasons. “He’s done a great job, and I feel the same way about him: he’s different. And he’s going to be ready to go when he’s ready to go.”

Stay out of Browns’ Kitchens

In anticipation of Freddie Kitchens’ return to Cleveland with the Giants, the Cleveland media has reminisced about some heated 2019 Browns-Colts joint practices in Kitchens’ lone season as the Browns’ head coach.

Kitchens told his team not to back down from anyone, and it resulted in fisticuffs, scrums and dust-ups as emotions ran high. “We came here to impose our will,” Odell Beckham Jr. told reporters then.

Judge’s Giants also have a reputation for fighting, obviously, after their team-wide melee early in camp. But Judge said his relationship with Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski, going back to their freshman year together at St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia, is helpful in creating an understanding.

“To me the trust factor’s huge, which is part of the reason me and Kevin talked way back in the offseason about doing this” Judge said. “You can work together and make sure, ‘hey, What do we need to see? Let’s work together to make sure we all accomplish that.’

“The players have to understand going in, it’s going to be competitive,” Judge added. “But we don’t want to get out there and make it something that’s not football. We want to ... keep it between the lines and keep it between the whistles.”

Practice is scheduled for 2:25 p.m. Thursday at the Browns’ CrossCountry Mortgage Campus in Berea, Ohio.

Mara on the brawl

John Mara said Tuesday he thought Judge “handled it well” after the team-wide brawl early in camp, but the Giants co-owner seemed disturbed by some of the player actions taken to escalate it.

“It was disappointing for me to see what happened on the field,” Mara said, no doubt including Logan Ryan’s dangerous hit to the back of Evan Engram’s neck. “I think I said to somebody the other day: I think I’ve been to over 60 training camps in my lifetime and I’ve seen every type of brawl that you can imagine out on the field. You never want to see that.”

Bring it back

The Giants have placed QB Clayton Thorson (concussion) and CB Jarren Williams (quad) back on their injured reserve list after waiving them injured in the days prior. So both Thorson and Williams are still with the team, not free agents, and will be eligible for the active roster if and when healthy.