Giants' Saquon Barkley on struggles: 'I'm never going to make any excuses'

So much has been made about the fact that the New York Giants' offense is tied for 25th in scoring and averaging 18.7 points per game, realities that could soon cause offensive coordinator Jason Garrett to lose his play-calling duties, that Saquon Barkley's lack of explosiveness has somewhat gone undiscussed among non-Giants fans. 

Barkley tore his ACL on Sept. 20, 2020, and was brought back at a snail's pace ahead of this month's regular-season opener on Sept. 12. Since Week 1, the 24-year-old star running back has tallied 134 rushing yards with a touchdown on 39 carries, good for 3.4 yards per attempt, and also nine catches for 56 yards. 

"I don't want to make any excuses. I'm not going to do that throughout this whole season," Barkley said as the Giants sit at 0-3, per Jordan Raanan of ESPN. "I'm never going to make any excuses. The expectation that people have for me, it's not even close to the expectation I have for myself -- and it never will be as long as I play football or whatever I do after football. That is just my mindset." 

As Raanan noted, Barkley was on the field for only 28 snaps in Week 1, but he hit over 50 snaps in each of the past two contests. However, there remain concerns that he's missing open gaps in run protections during games, either because he doesn't see them or because he still doesn't fully trust his knee: