Former Jets, Giants mainstays find success far from New York
The Vikings' Sam Darnold warms up before an NFL game against the Green Bay Packers on Dec. 29, 2024, in Minneapolis. Credit: AP/Bruce Kluckhohn
Old pals Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney didn’t speak to each other much this week as they prepared to face each other in an NFC wild-card game on Sunday. Barkley is the record-setting running back for the Eagles and McKinney is a Pro Bowl safety for the Packers, with each in his first season with his new team.
They used to chat all the time when they were teammates with the Giants.
“Talking to him last year and having a tough year and not having the season we would like, being captains of that team, and to see him go over there and thrive and see me come over here and thrive, it’s a beautiful thing,” Barkley recently told reporters in Philadelphia. “We’re in two spots where we were able to let our play show.”
The regular season may have ended for fans of the Giants and Jets last weekend, as the two New York City-based teams wrapped up the long plod through their schedules with incompetence and embarrassment, but that doesn’t mean the pain of those failures will cease. In some ways, it may be about to get a whole lot worse.
Neither local squad got anywhere close to the playoffs, but just about every team that is participating in this postseason has some kind of link to them. A few are subtle and take long leaps to connect.
If the Jets had fired Robert Saleh at the end of last season and entered the head coach hiring cycle then, might they have landed Jim Harbaugh, who has quickly turned the Chargers into contenders?
Would the Giants’ season have gone very differently if they had drafted Bo Nix, the rookie who has led the Broncos to a winning season, or signed Russell Wilson, the veteran who visited them before signing with the Steelers and quarterbacking them (albeit with some late stumbles) to this weekend?
But there are other blows that land squarely and firmly in the gut to remind the Giants and Jets of what — and whom — they are missing out on.
Chief among them in this playoff round will be the meeting between Barkley and McKinney on Sunday along with the playoff starting debut of former Jets draft pick Sam Darnold as quarterback of the Vikings on Monday night.
Darnold won 14 regular-season games for Minnesota this season. In three seasons as the Jets’ starter from 2018-20, he won 13.
"This is the time when people, whether guys are in the league for a long time, whether they've been with the same team for a long time, whether they're bouncing around the league, it's kind of where legacies I guess are made: in the playoffs,” Darnold said. “Not just winning games, but winning those later games, like AFC or NFC championships, Super Bowl. That's how you're going to be remembered at the end of the day.”
In Darnold’s case, it also might be where millions of dollars in future salary is determined. If he wins Monday (and potentially keeps winning), he’ll be one of the most prized quarterback commodities in free agency come March . . . assuming the Vikings don’t sign him before he hits the market. If he has a poor showing, he could be back to being considered a good-not-great option for teams with a decidedly middle-class price tag.
Either way, he’s certainly proved that the Jets were wrong to give up on him so quickly.
And if Darnold really flops or gets hurt, that could mean the Vikings turn to their newly appointed backup quarterback. You may have heard of him. A guy named Daniel Jones.
Darnold does have some sideline playoff experience, having been the backup for the 49ers’ run to the Super Bowl last season. McKinney and Barkley have a more hands-on feel for the postseason. Both were starters for the Giants in 2022 when they won a wild-card game in Minnesota before losing in Philadelphia.
They carry lessons from that with them now.
“Just got to be better,” McKinney said of what he learned from the Giants’ exit at the hands of the Eagles. “Not even just on Sunday, but how I prepare throughout the week. I thought it was good enough, and then once you lose, you’re like, ‘Damn. All right, next time I get here, we’ve got to figure out something else that can improve where I’m at to be better than what I was this time.’ ”
Barkley — who rushed for 2,005 yards and needed only 101 yards to break Eric Dickerson's record set in 1984 but sat out the Eagles' final game — said competing in the playoffs for the Giants “was definitely a cool experience," even though it ended with that 38-7 loss.
“The biggest takeaway I had from that, there was a run I had [for 39 yards] against Philly, it was kind of late in the game,” he said. “Maybe it makes a difference — maybe not, probably not — where I think it was [safety Marcus] Epps kind of tripped my footing. Those runs, this year, have been 60-yarders and 70-yarders. I went into that offseason knowing that I probably wasn't ready for that moment.”
Now he is.
Just not with the Giants anymore.
“I know how great those guys are up front and how helpful they are for me and the things I have been able to accomplish so far this season,” he said of the Eagles’ offensive line (which, by the way, includes former Jets first-round bust Mekhi Becton at guard). “This is why I came here. This team [has] a lot of guys who were here as part of the Super Bowl team [in 2022] and guys who were here last year. For me, it’s how can I add and what can I do?”
The playoffs won’t be all about glum regrets over things that didn’t work out for the Giants and Jets. There may be some rays of hope to mine from this next month of games, too.
Perhaps the future quarterback of the Giants will be on the field, be it Darnold or maybe Justin Fields with the Steelers. The next head coach of the Jets could be calling plays, be it Aaron Glenn as defensive coordinator for the Lions or Joe Brady as offensive coordinator for the Bills.
Most of this postseason around here, though, will be spent watching the many players who used to suit up for the Giants and Jets now performing at high levels for other teams and vying to bring a championship home . . . to their cities instead of ours.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
