Saquon relishing Eagles training camp with Hard Knocks in rearview

Saquon relishing Eagles training camp with Hard Knocks in rearview originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

There aren’t many fans allowed on the sideline during a typical Eagles training camp practice but those in attendance for Day 1 on Wednesday were pretty excited to see Saquon Barkley.

In fact, they cheered loudly every time he touched the football.

“Yeah, I definitely heard it,” Barkley said with a smile.

Barkley is 27 now and after six years of playing for the New York Giants, the team that drafted him No. 2 overall back in 2018, he has moved his life and career a bit south after signing a three-year deal with the Eagles this offseason.

A player changing teams in free agency isn’t rare. Not at all.

But changing teams in free agency and then watching it play out again on national television is.

And that’s what Barkley went through over the last few weeks as HBO chronicled the Giants’ offseason and the organization’s decision to let Barkley test his market and then ultimately leave for a division rival.

“I think it was a unique way to see how free agency is like in a building in the NFL for fans,” Barkley said. “I got to see a little bit prior to when it all came out. But it was unique, it was different seeing it from that point of view.”

Barkley’s departure from the Giants was one of the major storylines on this season of Hard Knocks, even though he said the drama wasn’t as intense living through it.

One of the most memorable scenes from the entire summer was when Giants general manager Joe Schoen spoke with Barkley on the phone directly to tell him that the Giants were going to let him test free agency.

It’s a conversation that Barkley said on Wednesday he didn’t know was being recorded. But he also wasn’t shocked when he learned about it on a trailer for the show.

“At the end of the day, they have control of the edits and they could have painted me to look really bad and they kind of gave the truth,” Barkley said….

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/saquon-relishing-eagles-training-camp-110000547.html

Author : NBC Sports Philadelphia

Publish date : 2024-07-25 11:00:00

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