Saquon Barkley: I want to be great, and I want to be great for this team

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Saquon Barkley led the NFL in yards from scrimmage with 2,028 as a rookie. He scored 15 touchdowns and won offensive rookie of the year honors.

The Giants running back had a high-ankle sprain last season that kept him out of three games, and though he did top 1,000 yards rushing again, he wasn’t the same back.

Barkley is back to being himself, Tom Rock of Newsday reports, but the one-time Pro Bowler wants to be the best version of himself this season.

“Obviously, I’m not naïve to the fact that I was blessed with a tremendous talent,” Barkley said. “The way you improve on that is by focusing on little things, focus on the details and listen to your coaches. I think we have a great coaching staff here, from coach [Joe] Judge all the way down to the position coaches, all the guys. I want to be great, and I want to be great for this team. I know that starts with taking coaching and learning from them.”

Barkley, 23, is “always looking for a better way of doing something,” Judge said.

“You have to try to improve on every year,” Barkley said. “Try to be a better version of yourself, try to improve on your game. It’s the little things that you do in the offseason. It’s the stuff that you focus on. The details in cutting, the details in watching film, of watching other people on film and trying to expand your game. The way I feel I can be a better Saquon Barkley, I guess you could say, is by coming here every single day, coming to work and trying to continue to earn the respect of my teammates. Continuing to try to push myself and push my teammates. At the end of the day, it’s all about the team. That’s the mindset we need to have in order to go out there and have a successful season.”