Pat Leonard: Saquon Barkley, Xavier McKinney Player of Year showings pile on top of explosive Giants locker room

NEW YORK — A Giants locker room under Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge never called out its coaches and players after a game the way Brian Daboll’s did on Sunday.

Brian Burns was asked: Is the coaches’ message still getting through?

“Um,” he said. Then he paused for a few seconds.

“I would like to think that,” Burns said. “The reason I say I would like to think that is because everybody has the right answers, but it’s not showing up where it needs to show up.”

Maybe the players are venting louder than ever because the locker room has never been provoked this directly by management.

GM Joe Schoen might have let both the NFL MVP and Defensive Player of the Year leave the Giants in the same offseason for nothing.

As Burns, Malik Nabers, Dexter Lawrence and other Giants players struggled to contain their frustrations, former Giants teammate Xavier McKinney was moving into the Defensive Player of the Year conversation with his seventh interception to tie for the league lead. The Giants defense as a whole has just one.

McKinney’s Green Bay Packers are now 8-3.

Hours later, former Giants teammate Saquon Barkley charged ahead as the NFL MVP frontrunner with 255 rushing yards, 302 total yards and two touchdowns of 70 and 72 yards, respectively.

Barkley credited his “fresh start” with the 9-2 Eagles for his resurgence after the game.

“I’ve never seen a running back like Saquon Barkley,” Rams pass rusher Jared Verse said.

Barkley’s talent isn’t just what’s missing with the Giants, though.

As wide receiver Darius Slayton told the New York Daily News this week, Barkley’s role with the Giants was “bigger than football.”

Three-time Super Bowl champion Tedy Bruschi took it step further Sunday morning on ESPN when describing the Giants’ decision to sign Daniel Jones and let Barkley walk.

“Schoen chose quarterback over culture, because Saquon was the culture,” Bruschi said. “He even let McKinney go. I think Schoen is fractured from this locker room. He doesn’t know what’s going on in there, because how could you not know how important this player was to not only your team but to your culture?”

Three-time Pro Bowler Alex Smith said on ESPN that “there’s a lot of dysfunction on the personnel side, and Saquon’s obviously highlighting it.

“If it’s not tanking, it’s incompetency,” he said. “You can’t identify and develop talent, and there’s a real problem there.”

The loss of culture and leadership doesn’t stop at Barkley and McKinney.

Jones was a key leader, taking teammates out to weekly dinners and setting an example with his work ethic. Seahawks safety Julian Love and defensive lineman Leonard Williams were tied directly to the leadership and fabric and camaraderie of the locker room, too.

Now, Dexter Lawrence is rocking himself back and forth on the sidelines as the leader of this team, trying not to blow a gasket again.

The Jones shut down due to a salary cap penalty in 2025 for injury sent a destructive message, and the players are responding in turn.

“You don’t want us to win, and that’s what you think if you’re in that locker room right now,” Bruschi said. “This is a tank job, I would be thinking if I was in that locker room — that you don’t care to put the best players on the field because it’s too much money for you.

“So now, how do we feel in the locker room?” Bruschi said. “I’m just gonna do my job, try to stay healthy, do the best I can to survive this season, and we’ll see what happens if this is even our coach next year.”

How fed up is Burns with results like Sunday’s 30-7 embarrassment?

“I’m gettin’ there,” he said.

More like the Giants’ players are already there.

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