Of all the players on the field for these woebegone teams in Sunday’s Giants vs. Jets pillow fight, the one transcendent star is supposed to be Saquon Barkley. He is the one general manager Dave Gettleman said is “touched by the hand of God’’ and the running back the Giants took with the No. 2 pick in the 2018 draft, allowing the gleeful Jets at No. 3 to take quarterback Sam Darnold.
The Giants must be able to count on Barkley to churn out yard after yard on the ground, to inhale passes out of the backfield with regularity and to crash into the end zone between 15 and 20 times a season.