NFC Championship Game 2012: Giants' Rushing Attack Will Be an Afterthought

Running the football is something the New York Giants should do well, but they don't. Despite having two solid running backs in Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs, the Giants finished dead last in the NFL in rushing during the regular season.

Giants head coach Tom Coughlin says this needs to change in the NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers. If the Giants don't run the ball, they're going to be in trouble.

“We did make some plays, some chunk runs, toward the end of the game and at the half, which substantiated our numbers,” said Coughlin of his team's rushing attack against the Green Bay Packers in the Divisional Round, according to Pro Football Talk. “But the consistency I don’t think was there to the extent that we would want it. So that would be the number one thing.”

So in a perfect world, both Bradshaw and Jacobs will gain good chunks of yardage against the 49ers consistently throughout all four quarters. If they can do that, the Giants will control the tempo of the game and propel themselves into the Super Bowl with ease.

This is not going to happen.

We can ramble on all we want about how nothing is a given in the playoffs and how anything can happen on any given Sunday, but there are some things that we can take for granted. One is that nobody runs on the 49ers.

I repeat, nobody. Even The Flash would have to find a way around the 49ers.

The numbers speak for themselves. The 49ers only allowed 77.3 rushing yards per game during the regular season, the lowest figure in the NFL. They just didn't play nice with running backs.

That trend held up in the Divisional Round against the New Orleans Saints. The Saints only ran the ball 14 times, gaining just 37 yards. That's an average of 2.6 yards per carry, which is pretty impressive when you consider how the 49ers didn't exactly stack the line of scrimmage. They were more worried about Drew Brees, who ended up throwing the ball a million times.

We can rest assured the 49ers won't be stacking the box out of fear of Bradshaw and Jacobs. They'll be more worried about Eli Manning and his connections with Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz, as well they should be.

But if the 49ers can stop the likes of Darren Sproles, Pierre Thomas (who was stopped cold) and Chris Ivory without stacking the box, they can surely stop the likes of Bradshaw and Jacobs. Both are accomplished runners in their own right, but neither of them are players that a defense has to worry about at all times.

So despite Coughlin's insistence that his running game needs to be more consistent, he's going to have to put the ball in Eli Manning's hands and ask him to go pull another win out of his back pocket.

That's not such a bad idea. Last I checked, Manning is an elite quarterback, and he's certainly the best Manning in the NFL right now.

At least until further notice.