New York Giants Running Back Brandon Jacobs' Outlook On Next Season

Last evening, I had the pleasure of attending the grand opening of the Center City Sports Bar in Paterson, NJ.

While the event had little impact on anyone outside of the immediate area, the event coordinators did manage to get quite a few athletes on hand.

Some of the more noteworthy cast included light heavyweight boxers Omar Sheika and Shaun George, as well as Paterson native and Dallas Mavericks forward Tim Thomas.

Still, the undisputed star of the show was New York Giants running back Brandon Jacobs.

Showing up fashionably late and rolling solo, the behemoth of a running back was welcome to pictures with fans as soon as he hit the scene.

Despite being mobbed by the patrons inside the sports bar, Jacobs was gracious enough to have a few words with me regarding the upcoming season.

As far as his expectations for the Giants go, Jacobs was very to the point, stating “win it all."

His reasoning was again simple, yet pretty logical.

“We have a good team with young, fast players, great coaches, and overall just a lot of talent.”

A fair answer from a guy who has teammates in Eli Manning, Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, and Ahmad Bradshaw to help manage this New York offense.

Speaking of Bradshaw, I inquired about the fact that running back by committee is becoming more and more popular in the NFL.

While Jacobs had the majority of the carries last season, Bradshaw had quite a few opportunities as well, with Danny Ware getting his shot in the final couple games of the season.

Jacobs was not sure how to expect the carries to be split this year, but he said he is “absolutely looking for more, I definitely need more than what I had last season."

A bold statement from a back coming from his worst season since 2006; in ’09 Jacobs had a disappointing 835 yards and five rushing touchdowns.

To be fair though, Jacobs had back to back 1,000 yard seasons in ’07 and ’08, and was slowed quite a bit last year due to knee problems.

He also missed five games last season, which is going to bring down the statistics of any player.

On that note, I felt it appropriate to ask Jacobs how he is feeling health wise, after getting off season surgery on his knee.

No. 27 replied emphatically that “I’m ready to raise hell," a strong indication that he is finally back to 100 percent.

Finally, I asked the power back what he thought about the recent roster shake ups in the NFC East.

As just about every fan knows, Donovan McNabb is now in Washington, Kevin Kolb is now the starter in Philly, Dez Bryant has just signed with the Cowboys, and the list could go on for a while.

The bottom line is, I wanted to know if Jacobs felt all the roster moves within the division would affect the competitiveness of the NFC East.

Jacobs was again clear and concise in his answer, proclaiming that “it (the roster changes) won’t affect the competitiveness at all. These are all internal issues that affect the teams individually. The bottom line is we are all going to beat up on each other, and in the end, the Giants will come out on top”.

Strong words from one of the strongest running backs in the NFL, we will see shortly how accurate his preseason predictions will be for Big Blue.