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Giants’ Rushing Game: Who Cares Who Starts?

by John Fennelly on September 7th, 2010 at 6:25 pm

Regardless of which side of the Bradshaw/Jacobs argument you’re on, you’re wrong.

Sure, the Giants will need both players to be effective in their roles if the team is going to be successful this season. But what will those roles be?

Who starts matters not. Neither does who finishes. What matters to fans is that the Giants get back to that 5.0 yards-per-carry average that helped win them a championship three years ago.

Jacobs was once the battering ram that softened up defenses for the second and third-gear backs. The Giants no longer have a second gear. They never found a capable replacement for the departed Derrick Ward.

Ahmad Bradshaw, the third gear, has the talent to do both jobs. The Giants are relying on him to do just that this season. They have reversed the order of speeds of the rushing attack in order to implement the idea.

Bradshaw will be charged with tiring out defenses early on with his speed and elusiveness. Jacobs’ job will be to relieve him by throwing haymakers into spent opponents in the second half of games.

The idea is a novel one, providing neither man gets hurt. But they always do.

The Giants only have the fragile, amorphous DJ Ware behind those two, leaving one to speculate if the Giants are trying to emulate the Indianapolis Colts.

And why wouldn’t they? They have a Manning at the helm, a fleet of talented receivers and two tight ends that can catch better than they can block.

The NFL is a passing league these days. You pass to open up the run. The Giants have realized that. Last season, they tried to go back to the future by running the football. It failed.

This year, they will follow the blueprint of the teams they will have to go through to get back to the Super Bowl. The Saints, Packers, Vikings and Cowboys are all pass-first teams. They will need to beat those teams at their own games.

Rushing the football has become a secondary strategy for the teams with the elite quarterbacks, aka – the Super Bowl contenders. We just had the ultimate ground and pound team – the Baltimore Ravens – pass through here (pun intended). They got the memo. They’re a passing team, now, too….

So quit arguing who should be the Giants starting RB. It’s a moot debate. The Giants are taking their offense to the next level.

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About John Fennelly

Managing Editor of SNY.tv's Giants Football Blog - the ultimate destination for New York Giants' news, opinion and entertainment. View all posts by John Fennelly →
  • JaymanJD

    THe Vikings? I don’t think Petterson would agree. He had 314 attempts and almost 1400 yards last year and 18 TD. THe Packers? Ryan GRant had 282 attempts over 1200 yards and 11 TD.

    Speaking of runnings backs Chris Johnson had 358 attempts and 2000 yard and 14 TD.

    In my opinion its not that passing has become the new fade its just that there just are not enough dynamic running backs in the league. If the Giants had Chris johnson or Adrian Petterson they Would run every play as well. The fact is the Giants Offensive line is starting to slow so its easier to just throw the ball.

    You may be right about the RB situation. However, I think the revival of the Giants defense is more important to them competing against thoughs teams rather than whether they pass more or run. Defense wins despite the fact that the Saints won.

    • John Fennelly

      Good points, but the teams who can throw the ball successfully will be the better teams.

      The rules favor it. The Giants know this and are changing accordingly. Sure, you can stil run the ball if you like. The Vikings run the ball after Favre throws 3 TDs in the first half…Let’s see how many times the Packers take the air out of the ball this year in close games, or the Ravens.

      They’re gonna throw first to get lead. Then run.

  • facesofdover

    Have you listened to the guys on Daily News live. They just debated if the Giants have sooo many question marks like the lack of a running game. Your point is what is the truth. In today’s NFL its a passing league. They need to pass to set up the run in this league. So Giants football used to be smashed mouth blah blah blah well that isn’t the way the league works anymore. Teams who people think are shoe ins for the playoffs are teams who can run it but need to pass to be successful. Look at the most consistently good teams in the NFL for the last 10 years. The Pats, Eagles, and Indy. They throw to set up the run. Heck Andy Reid doesn’t even believe running backs exist to get balls handed off to them. Eli proved last year he can handle being the focus of the offense and the first time he throws a deep out to SS or Nicks and the opposing defense gets torched the next hand off might go for 25 yards. It is what is is folks. Its a brave new world and like you said the Giants are growing up.

    • JaymanJD

      Simply silly it proves that you can twist things to make a point anytime. Teams go with the best player on offense. The Pats have a Hall of Fame QB, Eagles had a Hall of fame QB, and Indy has a Hall of Fame QB. You also have Drew Brees. This whole notion that the pass now sets up the run really does not matter. What matters is how many times you throw it verses everytime you run it. Just because the New Orleans Saints won does not mean that every team should decide to become pass happy. Unless you have a QB named Brady, BRees, or Payton it is not a sure bet to work. People said the same stuff when the Rams were good. They said that the pass happy offense would take over but they lasted a few years and then the trend faded. The NFL is all about trends back and forth. Right now the league has more great QB running teams than there are great RB. So teams have focused on putting the offense in the hands of the QB. In couple years the trend will change and there will be more elite RB and teams will go back to offenses dedicated to the run. Like I said before if the Giants had Adrian Petterson or Chris Johnson we would all be screaming for smash mouth. How you play should be based on the talent you have not on what other teams are doing. THe Giants cannot be the Saints, Indy, NE. Because as much as i like Eli Manning he is not even 3/4ths the Qb those guys are. And as much as I like Steve Smith and Nicks they are not even half the talent Moss is. So unless you have the personnel why pretend to be something that you are not just because of some “trend.”

      • facesofdover

        Wait the Eagles had a hall of fame QB. McNabb is not a hall of fame QB. He was and still is very good but he never won the big game, he choked when it counted, and wasn’t even loved by his own city. The team wanted to get rid of him so badly for an unproven QB they traded him to the Redskins. No, the only way you gauge QB’s in this league is by championships. As great as Marino was he will never be considered as great at Montana. So to say Eli Manning who was a super bowl MVP and a super bowl winner is not even 3/4ths the QB those guys are is to not appreciate him at all. He has been as durable, plays hurt, and last year when there was no running game to speak of he threw for 4000 yards, 27 td’s and only 14 picks while completing 62% of his passes. Your so called HOF QB in Philly was behind him in all those stats.

        • JaymanJD

          Sorry man but being a Hall of famer and Winning a Championship is too high a standard for me to vibe with. So you are telling me that Barry Sanders is not as good Jerome Bettis simply because Bettis won a championship that is foolish. There are plenty of hall of fame players who never won because their teams were not great. And there are plenty of good players who ended up on championship teams but that does not make them Hall of famers. Did McNabb have a down year sure he is getting older and the team around him was not great. But over his entire career there is no denying that McNabb has been a greater QB than ElI. ELI had a great statisical year but McNabb and other Hall of Famers have multiple great statistical years. I love Eli and I think he is one of the more clutch QBs in the league especially in the 4th but I seperate him from those elite QB or hall of fame types when it comes to consistency throughout a game and throughout a season. The fact is that despite Eli having the best statistical year of his career he was still unable to put this team on his back like his brother has been doing for the past decade. The difference is clear.
          Furthermore, for all this talk about how the pass sets up the run it sure didn’t work out for the Giants last year. The giants passed more and Eli looked great for much of the season but all that passing didn’t seem to open up anything run wise. It means Teams simply dared Eli to beat them and he couldn’t get it done. Not to mention that the Giants Defense was terrible. It goes to show that you can pass all you want but it seems to me the more you pass the quicker your team gets off the field and the more your defense has to play. So if your going to be pass happy you better have a solid defense that can handle the other team recieving more possessions. It really does little good to score a TD in 2 minutes and hand the ball to the other team only to give up a TD in 2 minutes.

  • facesofdover

    Oh come on man since when were we talking about running backs. To be a running back in the NFL is even in the same universe of being an NFL QB. You get the ball and run or you dont and block. Not much else if u really break it down. I’m not trying to diminish the effects a really great running back can have on a game but there is something to be said about having a guy make all the calls at the line, command the huddle, and make split second decisions, and running an offense compared to a guy who gets the ball fed to him and told to run.

    • facesofdover

      Also u talk about dominant defenses and being able to handle the extra time and stuff. When did we talk about defenses. I was and the whole message of John’s article was that in todays NFL the best offenses are pass first offenses. The rest of your points are arguing totally different topics all together.