Yahoo Sports Saquon Barkley cuts, plants, sprints on injured knee in workout video
The last time we saw Saquon Barkley on a football field, he was being helped to the locker room after shredding his right knee.
The injury left Barkley with a torn ACL in addition to meniscus and MCL damage. That was Week 2 last season.
On Tuesday, the New York Giants running back posted video of his progress, running various drills on the field and on a beach. The footage is encouraging.
First real look at Saquon Barkley running and cutting ACL post-surgery.
🎥 @saquon on IG pic.twitter.com/0VfCdgDbjS— Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) June 22, 2021
What does this mean?
The first segment is highly edited with quick cuts, closeups and slow motion clips of Barkley sprinting, cutting and planting on his right knee. The second segment shows raw footage of Barkley running footwork drills at the beach.
Obviously, Barkley is revealing here what he wants to reveal. But for Giants fans and fantasy loyalists, the footage at least hints at a full recovery in time for football season. He didn't appear to be limited in his movement with almost three months to go before the Giants' season-opener against the Denver Broncos.
Giants have been coy with Barkley's timeline
Head coach Joe Judge declined to provide a timeline for Barkley's return during Giants minicamp on June 8. Barkley joined the team for minicamp meetings but limited his physical work to continued rehab of his injured knee.
"We are going to make sure that we take Saquon’s rehab at the correct rate for his individual body and injury," Judge told reporters. "We have to make sure that we let him get it at his pace and when we put him on the field he can play 100% aggressive and confident and he's going to play safe and he can play effective."
Athletes are generally given a 6-to-9-month timeline to return to action from an ACL tear. That would put Barkley well on track for a return for Week 1 from the injury suffered on Sept. 20. But Barkley suffered more than an ACL tear, and he and the Giants have been reticent about providing any sort of timeline since the injury.
Barkley certainly looked 100% aggressive and confident in the videos he shared Tuesday. But those were drills. Full-speed game action is obviously a different beast.
The Giants will need all the help they can get this fall. BetMGM bookmakers predict New York to finish third in the NFC East with +325 odds to win the division.
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