What’s Giant about ‘em??

The New York Football Giants have a major problem heading into the 2007 season. The problem is their offense. It’s downright …well, offensive and the troubling thing is that no one in the organization seems to care. Their head coach is squarely on the hot seat, which is to say, he will be fired at the end of the upcoming season if the Giants don’t make it to the Super Bowl.

Their wide receiver corps. is actually a bright spot at this point, but Jeremy Shockey’s persona has always overshadowed his play on the field and Eli Manning hasn’t shown the brilliance that his name would imply is on its way. The main issue for the men in blue this year, however, is the retirement of Tiki Barber.

Head Coach Tom Coughlin and the Giants seem content going into this season with 3rd year man Brandon Jacobs as their starting running back and the veteran Reuben Droughns as the back up. So much so that they didn’t draft a running back until the 7th round. Now I realize that Jacobs is only entering his third season and has been only a back up to this point, but he has played in all but one game since being drafted, while Droughns had been an intrigal part of the Browns running game for the past two seasons. When looking at the stats of these three players I found something remarkable.

Last year Reuben Droughns played in twelve games in Cleveland and had 220 attempts for 758 yds. for an average of 3.4 yds. per carry and one run over 20 yards. Brandon Jacobs had 96 carries for 423 yds. for an average of 4.4 yds. per carry and zero carries over 20yds. In 2006, Tiki Barber rushed the ball 327 times for 1662 yds. for an average of 5.1 yds. per carry and eleven carries for over 20 yds with a 55 yarder being his longest of the year. …Eleven carries over 20 yds. compared to one for Droughns and zero for Jacobs, THE STARTER!!! Are You Kidding Me?? Droughns and Jacobs combined for exactly one more run over 20 yards than I had last year. Does that not jump off the page?? This, my friends, is no small thing.

The bottom line is… The Giants will not be able to run the football to take pressure off Eli Manning, further stunting whatever growth he is capable of. If I was Tom Coughlin I would be screaming from the roof tops to get a running back in there that can pop a long gain every now and then, but instead Mr. Coughlin acts as if all is well in “Big Blue’ land and it will, most certainly, wind up costing him his job.