The Giants need Brandon Jacobs to play big, finally. The Giants need the raging bull who was snarling at the media at his locker yesterday to take out his rage on the Saints Sunday and set his old smash-mouth tone to keep Drew Brees on the Superdome sidelines as long as possible.
Jacobs is The Angry Young Man these days because his paltry 3.6-yard rushing average is in stark contrast to Ahmad Bradshaw’s 6.5-yard average. It is time to for him to play much bigger than that.
Here’s how a 6-foot-4, 265-pound running back in a foul mood sounds:
Russ Salzberg: “Brandon, Coach says you have nothing to be down about as far as performance. That’s good to hear about from a coaching standpoint, but how do you feel?
Raging Bull: “It is what it is. I’m carrying the ball, people see me, they see nothing else, so I take the blame for that, ’cause a lot of people that don’t really know what’s going on . . . if something happens, a wideout don’t run the right route, or somebody tips the ball, it’s on the QB, ’cause that’s what people see. It’s the same thing. So I’m just going out here and I’m playin’, I’m doing the best I can do for my team.”
“I’m not worried. It’s gonna come. As long as I finish where I finished at the last couple of years, I’m fine, but . . . it’s gonna come together.”
Salzberg: “Does it make it feel easier for you to watch your running mate excelling — obviously, if he wasn’t, it might put more pressure on you?”
Raging Bull: “Not really. Like I say, he’s a different style runner from what I am, and a lot of this stuff suits him perfectly. You know, someone’s running free, he’s able to see him real quick and just try to make him miss and do something else. Me? I’m 6-4, 265 pounds — I’m supposed to run into people. I’m supposed to take somebody on. That’s me. If I don’t do that, I’m terrible, so . . . it is what it is.”
Then: “Any more questions about the New Orleans Saints or the Giants’ success? Let ’em fly, if not, get the hell away from my locker.”
A few softball questions followed about Jacobs returning home to play the improved Saints defense.
“It’s gonna be a war,” he said.
Serby: “A lot of your teammates refer to you as a tone-setter — do you see yourself that way for your offense?”
Raging Bull: “I try to go out there and do what I do. This year, so far, I’ve been just running into people and tryin’ to make my way that way. I see myself as a tone-setter because not only on the field, before the game, I try and get my team ready to play as well.”
Serby: “And on the field, you see yourself as a tone-setter in what way?”
Raging Bull: “You’re just looking for some [bleep], aren’t you?”
Serby: “What do you mean?”
Raging Bull: “Damn . . . Yes, I see myself as a tone-setter. Yes, I do. I’m goin’ out and just running into people — my 6-4, 265-pound frame doin’ what I’m supposed to be doing — runnin’ into people, get two-yard losses. Happy?”
Serby: “What was wrong with that question?”
Raging Bull: “So you’re [gonna] sit up here and let us argue, or you’re all gonna ask questions.
Serby: “No, I’m done.”
Is Jacobs (5.0 average in ’07 and ’08) running like he did? “It’s hard to discern any difference from the past,” offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride said.
Have the holes been there?
“He’s running hard; we’re not opening up the holes for him that we need to,” Rich Seubert said.
The good news: the 5-0 Giants expect defenses to start respecting Eli Manning’s aerial show.
“He gets asked to do a lot of the dirty work,” Shaun O’Hara said “He’s our big wrecking ball, and we put him out there and he basically wears down defenses. His presence is not always defined in stats.”
GM Jerry Reese isn’t worried. “The big runs’ll come,” he said.
Sunday, perhaps?
“I think rather than give in and surrender I think he’s gonna dig down deeper, that’s his makeup, particularly when you couple that with him going home,” Gilbride said.