Brandon Jacobs Is Not the Answer for the New York Giants

The Giants have looked like anything but Super Bowl champs lately, and being that these events have coincided with Brandon Jacobs' recent absence from action, people are naturally pointing at that as an explanation for their current woes.

Well I've got news for you: Jacobs is not Big Blue's knight in shining armor.

The Giants have looked so bad lately not because of who has been carrying the ball, but because the people blocking for those ball carriers have been dreadful.

And the fact that they haven't been able to pass the ball hasn't helped either.

Their aerial attack against the eagles, a game in which Jacobs played, was inexplicably out of sync. Then, as an encore to that circus act, the offensive line nearly allowed more sacks in one game against the Cowboys than they had the entire season up to that point.

Now if Brandon Jacobs had played against Dallas, would anything have been different? Rather than answering that with pointless conjecture, let's take a look back at some recent history.

Last year, Jacobs missed several games, and Derrick Ward stepped in without missing a beat. When Ward went down, Bradshaw finally got a chance to get some playing time alongside Jacobs, and was clearly the better player in the playoffs.

Jacobs had 62 carries for 197 yards, which is a 3.18 average/carry, while Bradshaw gained 206 yards on 48 carries, for a 4.3 clip.

This season Jacobs has played fine, but statistically has done no better than the other two backs on the team. Their respective average yards per carry for the season are Bradshaw, 5.7, Ward, 4.8, and Jacobs, 5.1.

Additionally, all this talk about how Jacobs softens up defenses with his bruising running style is pure nonsense. Jacobs is supposedly a power runner who can move the pile, yet he is useless if he gets wrapped up early on before he can gain momentum. That is precisely why he would have been ineffective against Dallas, since they were getting immediate penetration any time the Giants ran.

The most difficult thing for a back to do in the NFL is to get to that second level, past the initial wave of defenders, when there isn't necessarily much room to maneuver. So it doesn't impress me that Jacobs can run people over once he gets in the open field, because for all his size, I've seen him go down way too many time behind the line.

In those types of situations, being able to make a guy miss plays much more of a factor as compared to how big you are. It is true that it is hard to make that case based on last Sunday's game, but when a line plays as poorly as the Giants' O-line did, you could be a Barry Sanders/Jim Brown hybrid and still have a tough day. And if Jacobs had been playing, I guarantee you he would not have fared any better than Ward or Bradshaw.

If the Giants really want to spruce up their running attack, they don't need Jacobs to have more carries, they need to give him less. Bradshaw is Big Blue's best hope for success. He is the only back on the team who can truly rip off a big run at any time without there being a 99% chance that he'll get caught from behind.

Yet the coaching staff seems dead set on denying him any real opportunity to play. Even when Jacobs has sat out this year, they only play him sparingly, and even then will just put him in for one play and then pull him out the next.

How can he possibly get any sort of feeling of continuity under those circumstances.

You don't limit a player like that, especially when yards are hard to come by, because each time he touches the ball, the odds that he'll make a big play increase. It's maddening how idiotic people getting paid millions to coach a professional team can be.

The only thing that Jacobs has proven to me so far is that quantity does not equate to quality. Bradshaw, on the other hand, is evidence that big things do come in small packages. If only Coughlin were willing to take off the wrapping.