Giants RB Saquon Barkley unlikely to have full workload to begin season?

Saquon Barkley continues to make progress in his return from a torn ACL, but it sounds like the New York Giants will be taking things slowly with him.

Dan Duggan of The Athletic suggested that Barkley has a good chance to play in Week 1, but will not have a full workload. The expectation is that Barkley will be brought along slowly as the team seeks to get him back to full strength.

In addition, the Giants may be reluctant to give Barkley as big a workload as he had before suffering the injury. Duggan notes Barkley played 83 percent of the team’s offensive snaps in his first two seasons, a mark he might be unlikely to hit again as the Giants seek to avoid overworking him.

The desire to take it slow with Barkley would be an understandable one. He’s still a big part of the Giants’ future, and they will not want to run him into the ground when he’s still relatively young. In fact, there was initial chatter that the Giants might just hold him out at the start of the season out of an abundance of caution, but that seems less likely now.