I clearly remember the day Saquon Barkley signed with the Philadelphia Eagles. I was relaxing after a day of classes when the news broke of the three-year, $37.75 million deal. There went my relaxation. I read all the articles, absorbed all of the chatter on social media and tuned into WFAN on the Audacy app for hours so I could hear someone else deal with the same emotions I was feeling.

As a lifelong New York Giants fan who jumped into her father’s arms as a little girl when they won their two most recent Super Bowls, it was hard to recall another time I had felt this kind of devastation surrounding my football team. The face of the franchise, our 2018 Offensive Rookie of the Year, the shining light of a team that had not given fans much to smile about in several years, was going to play for, perhaps, Big Blue’s most hated rival.

Now, it was never as simple as that last sentence made it sound. The Giants had one winning season with Barkley when they went 9-7-1 and won a playoff game in 2022. As fantastic as Barkley often was, the Giants had numerous other holes in their offense, and simply couldn’t rationalize spending the money Barkley wanted on a running back. It might be easy to look at the season Barkley has had with the Eagles and wonder how on earth the Giants could have let him go, but if we try to get inside the mind of Giants general manager Joe Schoen, it might start to become clearer. We also have to remember that Barkley likely would not have had the same season he had this year, winning the Associated Press’ Offensive Player of the Year award, had he been with the Giants. The Eagles have one of the better offensive lines in the NFL, whereas that has been a problem for the Giants for a number of years. So, yes, I watched Barkley tally his career-high and NFL-leading 2,005 rushing yards (100 yards short of Eric Dickerson’s all-time single-season record) this year with strong feelings of envy and wondering where it all went wrong, but the more rational side of me knows why this happened. The Giants were barely competitive with Barkley. They couldn’t reasonably pay what he wanted and what he likely deserved. Now Big Blue must continue to pick up the pieces, after going 3-14 in 2024, and watch an old friend celebrate his first Super Bowl ring in a green jersey. On “Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants,” Giants owner John Mara said, “I’ll have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia.” Well, not only did Barkley go to Philly, he won the Super Bowl in his first season with the team. It felt like another kick in the gut for an already incredibly difficult year for the Giants.

I say all this with great love and admiration for Barkley. He gave the Giants faithful something to care about in numerous seasons where it felt like little was going our way. When Eli Manning retired in 2020, Barkley quickly became my new favorite player. When he became an Eagle, of course, it hurt. But not because he “betrayed the Giants,” or whatever anyone wants to claim about loyalty. It hurt because we knew what he was capable of on the field, and now he was going to be making that magic happen for someone else. It hurt because he gave us a highlight reel that now had an end. He deserves all the success in the world, and I will always root for him. Him specifically, to be clear. I could never root for the Eagles.

Loved players changing teams happens, and the world keeps spinning. Eventually, we find new players to love, and eventually, those new ones might leave too. But the feelings that come with these departures linger. New York Islanders fans still vehemently boo former captain John Tavares when his Toronto Maple Leafs visit Long Island, even though he hasn’t been an Islander since 2018. I’m sure it stung for Los Angeles Angels fans when Shohei Ohtani signed his massive contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2023, and even more when he won the World Series with them a year later. This is not to compare these situations to that of Barkley and the Giants, as each is different. But fans grow attached to these players — perhaps too attached sometimes — yet it’s understandable. Diehard fans live and die with the results of their team, and the best players that bring the most joy mean something to them. It might seem easiest to cope with these feelings by trying to find someone to blame. But in reality, in many situations, it was just not meant to be. With Barkley, one cannot blame him for wanting to go to the team that wanted to give him the most money, but one also cannot fully blame the Giants for not wanting to devote that quantity of money to one player when the other pieces around him are not enough to win them a championship. Sometimes, as sad as it is, a divorce is best for both sides.

Fortunately, I have so far managed to avoid a similar heartbreak with Pete Alonso and the Mets, as he signed a new two-year, $54 million contract on Feb. 5 (the contract includes an opt-out after year one). His #20 jersey sits in my closet, waiting to be pulled out again when summer rolls around and I spend a copious amount of time at Citi Field. I am more than thrilled that I get at least one more year of Alonso as a Met, both for the benefit of the baseball team and for his goofy and fun personality. The 2019 Mets, though they missed the playoffs, are one of my favorite Mets teams I’ve witnessed, and Alonso’s 53-homer performance as a rookie was perhaps the biggest reason for that. Though he is coming off a down year in 2024, I struggle to imagine future Mets teams without him. That said, if he does not continue in Queens after this contract, a tiny piece of me will always hope that each time he is up to bat, he will smack a home run and go on a trot around the bases. Just not against the Mets, please. The Mets come first.

And the same goes for Barkley. I badly wish things had worked out with him and the Giants, but I will always root for him to break off in a huge run into the end zone because it is just that cool to see. But once again, not against my team, please. To me, the only unfortunate part of a Barkley run is that it often results in six more points for Philadelphia.