Saquon Barkley still dealing with mental aspects of ankle injury

[Giant]

Getty Images

Giants running back Saquon Barkley has not matched the success of his rookie season this year and one of the reasons why is the high ankle sprain that cost him three games early in the season.

Barkley has played the last seven games, but hasn’t had the kind of impact that the Giants grew to expect after watching him last year. On Thursday, he said that the ankle feels “really good” while noting that he’s still being affected by non-physical fallout from the injury.

“It’s not so much the injury that, I guess you could say, is holding me back,” Barkley said, via Dan Duggan of TheAthletic.com. “Even though physically you feel like you’re back, mentally you might be telling yourself that you’re back, but you watch yourself on film and see that you’re running and you’re protecting yourself. You just don’t really think you’re doing it but naturally it’s just happening.”

With just three games left in the season, Barkley may need to wait for next year to get completely over the hump.