The New York Giants are throwing a challenge flag on Donald Trump.
As team spokesman Pat Hanlon tells Daily Mail, the Saquon Barkley anecdote delivered by Trump at the Philadelphia Eagles‘ White House visit on Monday was, indeed, fictitious.
‘I was with the Giants and the head coach [Brian Daboll] and some people and I said, ”Do anything you have to, but don’t lose Saquon,” Trump said of Barkley at Monday’s White House visit, where players and coaches were joined by Ivanka Trump and other MAGA insiders.
It was just over a year ago that Barkley left the Giants to sign a three-year, $37.7 million deal with the rival Eagles, who were rewarded with a 2,000-yard rushing season from the All-Pro and a Super Bowl title to boot.
But, as Hanlon first told Front Office Sports, ‘there were no conversations.’
A constant figure with the Giants since the early 90s, Hanlon spoke at greater length online.
The Eagles’ Saquon Barkley looks on as US President Donald Trump delivers remarks
Trump claimed to have warned the Giants not to let Barkley leave via free agency
‘With all due respect, stop yapping,’ Hanlon wrote on X. ‘Be the leader we all want you to be. And my 401K wants you to be. I’m trying to retire!!’
The cap-strapped Giants made he difficult decision to let Barkley walk in 2024 after taking him with the second pick of the 2018 NFL Draft.
Unfortunately for both Barkley and the Giants, he struggled somewhat with injuries in New York, including his 2020 ACL tear, which required major knee surgery to repair.
The Giants have faced heavy criticism over their failure to retain Barkley, particularly after HBO’s Hard Knocks revealed co-owner John Mara admitting he’d ‘have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia.’
Barkley has since mocked that comment in an advertisement for a sleeping mask.
‘Rockabye baby, awake in your bed,’ Barkley began reciting. ‘As the thought of 2,000 swirls in your head. It sure is tough to lose sleep over football. Not for me, though; goodnight to you all.’
Trump and Philadelphia Eagles’ running back Saquon Barkley shake hands at the White House
Trump has always portrayed himself as having a good mind for the game. Before picking the Kansas City Chiefs to win February’s Super Bowl, the 78-year-old made several doomed attempts at becoming an NFL team owner.
In 1983, Trump expressed an interest in buying the Baltimore Colts, who weren’t ultimately sold but were relocated to Indianapolis.
A year later, Trump had a reported chance to buy the Dallas Cowboys for just $50 million but declined, allowing Jerry Jones to acquire the franchise for $140 million later in the decade. Now the Cowboys rank as the most valuable team in sports with a $9 billion valuation from Forbes.
And Trump wasn’t only using money to get an NFL team. He also tried using leverage, according to Jeff Pearlman’s 2018 book, ‘Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL.
Launched in 1983, the USFL was a spring football league that boasted a surprising array of talent, including future Trump political ally Herschel Walker. One year into the league, Trump would buy Walker’s team, the New Jersey Generals, which he’d own until the league went bust in 1986.
The USFL’s abbreviated history is defined by several clear mistakes, like the decision to add six new franchises after a promising inaugural season in 1983. But perhaps the bigger misstep was choosing to move its season to the fall in 1985 and challenge the NFL directly – a decision that was influenced heavily by Trump.
‘In the lead-up to buying the team, he was all about spring football and how great the league was, and, ‘I love what the USFL is doing and blah blah blah,’ Pearlman told DailyMail.com in 2018. ‘He gets approved as an owner, he buys the team, and immediately: ‘We need to move to fall; we need to take on the NFL.’
‘His big line was: ‘If God wanted football in the spring, he wouldn’t have invented baseball.”
Trump is seen as Generals owner alongside running back and future ally Herschel Walker
Late NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle reportedly told Trump he would never own a league team
According to interviews conducted by Pearlman, Trump’s initial plan was to have the USFL fold and the NFL absorb the Generals as an expansion franchise.
However, during a meeting with then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle in New York City’s Pierre Hotel in 1984, that plan was foiled.
‘He basically said to Rozelle,’ Pearlman explained, ”I don’t really give a s*** about the USFL. I want an NFL team. What do I have to do to get in the NFL?”
‘It was basically an offer to throw the USFL under the bus.’
Trump did not get the answer he was looking for.
‘Rozelle said to him, ‘As long as I’m the commissioner, you’re never going to have a team,” Pearlman continued. ‘He didn’t trust him. He thought he was a scumbag. He didn’t say, ‘I think you’re a scumbag,’ but Rozelle made his feelings toward Trump very well known. [Rozelle] also made them well known during the trial when he testified.’
Philadelphia Eagles star Saquon Barkley spent time with Donald Trump over the weekend
Trump spent a good portion of today’s visit gushing about the ‘handsome’ Barkley.
‘I wouldn’t want to tackle him,’ Trump confessed before shaking the All-Pro’s hand.
In fact, the two had just golfed together at the President’s Bedminster, New Jersey Club before boarding Marine One.
Inevitably, Trump’s ardent critics were quick to pile in on Barkley as he spent time with the most powerful man in the country and by Monday morning, the Eagles star issued a response.
‘Lol some people are really upset cause I played golfed and flew to the White House with the PRESIDENT,’ Barkley wrote on X.
‘Maybe I just respect the office, not a hard concept to understand. Just golfed with Obama not too long ago…and look forward to finishing my round with Trump!
‘Now ya get out my mentions with all this politics and have amazing day.’
