Giants’ Jacobs Prepares to Step Outside Barber’s Shadow
By JOHN BRANCH
Published: September 9, 2007
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., Sept. 7 — Giants running back Brandon Jacobs is bigger than six of the team’s seven linebackers and two of its three tight ends. He is roughly the size of defensive end Michael Strahan. Yet he is faster than all of them, and faster than almost every other teammate, and certainly faster than Tiki Barber, the man he is about to replace.
Or so Jacobs said.
“We might have three people in here who could beat me,” he said as he scanned the locker room. “Might.”
The only thing more muscular than Jacobs is his talk. His sentences are declarative, his words as direct and devoid of nuance as his running style, in which he treats defenders the way a bowling ball treats pins. The points come when you knock them down.
“I had no choice two years ago and last year,” said Jacobs, largely a short-yardage back who plunged into the end zone nine times in 2006. “That’s what I did. That’s how I made my money.”
Jacobs is a fan favorite because of his comic-hero size and the way he bursts angrily through the line of scrimmage. He will run headfirst into his new role as an all-around back Sunday night at Texas Stadium, making his first N.F.L. start against the Dallas Cowboys. He begins the unenviable task of following Barber, who retired as the Giants’ career leading rusher.
Jacobs is better known for his measurements, not his accomplishments. He is 6 feet 4 and, on Tuesday, weighed 259 pounds. But Jacobs considered the vital statistic that may surprise people most. He nodded toward the tiny speedster Sinorice Moss. He mentioned the diminutive receiver Michael Jennings. He stopped.
“Actually, that’s about it,” he said. “I think I’m going to beat everybody else in the 40. I could run a 4.4 right now if we go outside and run it.”
Jacobs said that he and some teammates clocked one another in the spring, and that he ran 40 yards in 4.43 seconds.
Verification proved difficult. Cornerback Sam Madison laughed at the claim.
“B. J. said he’s one of the fastest guys on the team,” Madison told cornerback and punt returner R. W. McQuarters, who scoffed.
“I just beat him in a race,” McQuarters said. Using his index fingers to demonstrate the two running side by side after practice this week, McQuarters showed how he pulled ahead of Jacobs at the end.
Then he thought about it. The two had raced 100 yards. They were tied through 40.
With his size and speed, his sound-bite guile and a smattering of playing time, Jacobs has become a cult hero — largely unknown, highly anticipated.
“He’s a good kid,” the veteran running back Reuben Droughns said. “He’s aggressive, he’s outspoken. I love it because I know he’s going to come out every day and back it up.”
One may argue that the Giants cannot be as good this season without Barber’s 1,662 rushing yards and 465 yards receiving. One may argue that the Giants can be better with Jacobs, who promises a grinding toughness absent for years.
Either way, the Giants will be different.
“There certainly are things that are done to accommodate the characteristics of the player,” Coach Tom Coughlin said. “This player is a different player.”
Another statistic that sticks out for Jacobs is 11. It is the largest number of carries he has had in an N.F.L. game. The Giants would like him to average double that. They want to bang teams with Jacobs in the first quarter, bruise them in the second, batter them in the third and beat them in the fourth.
What the Giants do not know is whether Jacobs can do it without wearing himself down. He does not share that concern.
“Look at me,” Jacobs said last month. “That tells me everything I need to know.”
The Giants’ playbook has not been altered, and Coughlin would like to keep the run-pass ratio similar to what it was last season, when the team ran 45.4 percent of the time. What will be different is the type of runs called: more mauling man-to-man blocking schemes for the linemen, more grab-and-go runs for the backs.
“When you have a big back, you want to get him running vertically,” center Shaun O’Hara said. “You don’t want them running east and west, you want them running north and south. For us, I think we have that in mind. And the great thing about Brandon is that it doesn’t take him long to get a full head of steam going. For him to get 4 yards, it really doesn’t take a whole lot. As long as he’s falling forward, we’re going to get positive yards.”
Barber’s strength was his ability to instantly scout the best running lane — to think, cut and go, to hesitate a moment before slipping through a crease.
Jacobs does not hesitate. He just goes.
“Less jittery, more power,” the backup running back Derrick Ward said.
Changing running backs could have a wider effect on the offense. Barber’s elusiveness and pass-catching skills kept defenses spread. Now, more than before, teams will try to stuff the run and hope to force quarterback Eli Manning to throw.
“Sure, it will be more power stuff than what Tiki ran, although Tiki ran inside,” Cowboys Coach Wade Phillips said during a conference call. “But you would think it would be more inside stuff than outside. That is what we are planning on.”
That is where Jacobs hopes to surprise with his speed. He declined to share his individual goals, but when numbers were tossed at him — 1,500 yards, 20 touchdowns and 1 Pro Bowl — he smiled. “That’s close,” he said. “That’s close.”
Later in the week, Jacobs stopped talking to reporters because a sentence he uttered so matter-of-factly — one directed at the Cowboys, and including the word whup — was printed, repeated and distributed through the Dallas locker room, even though he thought it was clear that he was joking.
It can be hard to tell. Jacobs rarely carries malice in his voice. Just confidence.
“There’s no chip on my shoulder,” Jacobs said before his news media boycott. “If you’re not sure about yourself and what you do, you shouldn’t be out there doing it.”
Published: September 9, 2007
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., Sept. 7 — Giants running back Brandon Jacobs is bigger than six of the team’s seven linebackers and two of its three tight ends. He is roughly the size of defensive end Michael Strahan. Yet he is faster than all of them, and faster than almost every other teammate, and certainly faster than Tiki Barber, the man he is about to replace.
Or so Jacobs said.
“We might have three people in here who could beat me,” he said as he scanned the locker room. “Might.”
The only thing more muscular than Jacobs is his talk. His sentences are declarative, his words as direct and devoid of nuance as his running style, in which he treats defenders the way a bowling ball treats pins. The points come when you knock them down.
“I had no choice two years ago and last year,” said Jacobs, largely a short-yardage back who plunged into the end zone nine times in 2006. “That’s what I did. That’s how I made my money.”
Jacobs is a fan favorite because of his comic-hero size and the way he bursts angrily through the line of scrimmage. He will run headfirst into his new role as an all-around back Sunday night at Texas Stadium, making his first N.F.L. start against the Dallas Cowboys. He begins the unenviable task of following Barber, who retired as the Giants’ career leading rusher.
Jacobs is better known for his measurements, not his accomplishments. He is 6 feet 4 and, on Tuesday, weighed 259 pounds. But Jacobs considered the vital statistic that may surprise people most. He nodded toward the tiny speedster Sinorice Moss. He mentioned the diminutive receiver Michael Jennings. He stopped.
“Actually, that’s about it,” he said. “I think I’m going to beat everybody else in the 40. I could run a 4.4 right now if we go outside and run it.”
Jacobs said that he and some teammates clocked one another in the spring, and that he ran 40 yards in 4.43 seconds.
Verification proved difficult. Cornerback Sam Madison laughed at the claim.
“B. J. said he’s one of the fastest guys on the team,” Madison told cornerback and punt returner R. W. McQuarters, who scoffed.
“I just beat him in a race,” McQuarters said. Using his index fingers to demonstrate the two running side by side after practice this week, McQuarters showed how he pulled ahead of Jacobs at the end.
Then he thought about it. The two had raced 100 yards. They were tied through 40.
With his size and speed, his sound-bite guile and a smattering of playing time, Jacobs has become a cult hero — largely unknown, highly anticipated.
“He’s a good kid,” the veteran running back Reuben Droughns said. “He’s aggressive, he’s outspoken. I love it because I know he’s going to come out every day and back it up.”
One may argue that the Giants cannot be as good this season without Barber’s 1,662 rushing yards and 465 yards receiving. One may argue that the Giants can be better with Jacobs, who promises a grinding toughness absent for years.
Either way, the Giants will be different.
“There certainly are things that are done to accommodate the characteristics of the player,” Coach Tom Coughlin said. “This player is a different player.”
Another statistic that sticks out for Jacobs is 11. It is the largest number of carries he has had in an N.F.L. game. The Giants would like him to average double that. They want to bang teams with Jacobs in the first quarter, bruise them in the second, batter them in the third and beat them in the fourth.
What the Giants do not know is whether Jacobs can do it without wearing himself down. He does not share that concern.
“Look at me,” Jacobs said last month. “That tells me everything I need to know.”
The Giants’ playbook has not been altered, and Coughlin would like to keep the run-pass ratio similar to what it was last season, when the team ran 45.4 percent of the time. What will be different is the type of runs called: more mauling man-to-man blocking schemes for the linemen, more grab-and-go runs for the backs.
“When you have a big back, you want to get him running vertically,” center Shaun O’Hara said. “You don’t want them running east and west, you want them running north and south. For us, I think we have that in mind. And the great thing about Brandon is that it doesn’t take him long to get a full head of steam going. For him to get 4 yards, it really doesn’t take a whole lot. As long as he’s falling forward, we’re going to get positive yards.”
Barber’s strength was his ability to instantly scout the best running lane — to think, cut and go, to hesitate a moment before slipping through a crease.
Jacobs does not hesitate. He just goes.
“Less jittery, more power,” the backup running back Derrick Ward said.
Changing running backs could have a wider effect on the offense. Barber’s elusiveness and pass-catching skills kept defenses spread. Now, more than before, teams will try to stuff the run and hope to force quarterback Eli Manning to throw.
“Sure, it will be more power stuff than what Tiki ran, although Tiki ran inside,” Cowboys Coach Wade Phillips said during a conference call. “But you would think it would be more inside stuff than outside. That is what we are planning on.”
That is where Jacobs hopes to surprise with his speed. He declined to share his individual goals, but when numbers were tossed at him — 1,500 yards, 20 touchdowns and 1 Pro Bowl — he smiled. “That’s close,” he said. “That’s close.”
Later in the week, Jacobs stopped talking to reporters because a sentence he uttered so matter-of-factly — one directed at the Cowboys, and including the word whup — was printed, repeated and distributed through the Dallas locker room, even though he thought it was clear that he was joking.
It can be hard to tell. Jacobs rarely carries malice in his voice. Just confidence.
“There’s no chip on my shoulder,” Jacobs said before his news media boycott. “If you’re not sure about yourself and what you do, you shouldn’t be out there doing it.”
posted by The Gryphon at 3:52 PM
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