The Giants and their fans wish they could snap their fingers and go back to the future and sneak the young Sam Huff, the young Lawrence Taylor, the young Harry Carson and Carl Banks onto the field in this desperate attempt on Judgment Day to keep Eagles running back LeSean McCoy from digging a knife through the franchise’s heart much too early in what already has been a nightmare season.
Alas, they’re all on their own.
Stop Shady McCoy, and let the first flicker of light interrupt the darkness. Stop McCoy, and stop the bleeding before the day can be remembered as Sunday Bloody Sunday.
“He can make his cuts on a dime like nobody I’ve ever seen,” Giants linebacker Spencer Paysinger said. “The only person I’ve seen do stuff like that so consistently is maybe like Reggie Bush in college. With a lot of running backs, you kinda guess where they’re going, but you can’t really guess where he’s going ’cause he’s so shifty.”
McCoy is the Eagle who has a history of making pigeons of the Giants, and he has never been more dangerous than he is now as the perfect back for Chip Kelly’s go-go offense.
“He’s our version of Barry Sanders, this era, because somebody that can just jump-cut and sidestep and just make you miss,” Paysinger said.
Terrell Thomas can see the similarities with Sanders: “He’s not the level of Barry Sanders, but he definitely mimics the way he runs, the way he’s agile and able to cut and find a way and be able to reverse the field.”
Cullen Jenkins played with McCoy and agrees the Sanders comparisons are legit.
“Obviously, Barry was a great back, and he did it for a long time, but McCoy definitely has those type of abilities,” Jenkins said.
Sanders himself points to McCoy as the one back who reminds him to some degree of himself.
“I would say that’s pretty accurate. That is very accurate,” safety Ryan Mundy said. “I actually had opportunity to play against him in college when I was at West Virginia and he was at Pitt. You saw flashes of it then, but now he’s taking it to another level.”
McCoy leads the NFL with 468 rushing yards. He averages six yards per rush. He’s also averaging 35 receiving yards per game.
“He’s nasty when it comes to multiple cuts and setting you up, and you have to play for the unexpected,” Thomas said. “At any given time, he’s able to get his feet in the ground and cut in any direction.”
Thomas cautioned that McCoy’s jukeability is not confined to the perimeter.
“He’ll make people miss in between the tackles,” Thomas said. “He’s not just an open-field back. In between the tackles, he’s making linebackers, D-linemen miss, and able to make progress.”
To the Giants, Michael Vick is no longer the Eagles’ most Lethal Weapon. It is No. 25.
“He is a very dynamic back,” Mundy said. “He has great instincts, great speed, he could definitely hit the home run. He’s a tough tackle. Guys like that, you have to have multiple hats to the ball. You have to gang-tackle him. … You can’t give him space. The typical running back is hard to bring down, but this guy, he’s special. We have to be gap-sound so he doesn’t find that little crease, ’cause once he gets in that little crease, it could be a potential big play for him.”
The last time the Giants were at home, their fans were appalled by the sight of the Broncos’ Knowshon Moreno bursting around right end for a pair of touchdown runs. Moreno isn’t the Real McCoy. McCoy is.
“He sees everything on the field pretty much, so if you leave any hole open, or any way for him to get out, he’ll find it,” Jenkins said.
Since 2009, McCoy has totaled 694 rushing yards and three TDs on 125 carries plus 171 receiving yards in eight games against the Giants.
So how do you stop him?
“You see backs like that and you go in just saying, ‘We gotta contain this guy,’ because he’s good enough to make something in any situation, so if there’s a missed tackle or something like that, you’ve gotta make sure you got guys rallying and stuff to not let it turn into big plays,” Jenkins said.
How do you approach him?
“Take his grass away, not give him those open fields, or that chance to kind of break your ankles, you know?” Paysinger said.
“So you just gotta try to take his grass away and put him where you want him to go.”
The Giants want to go 1-4. Need to go 1-4. Must go 1-4.
Stop McCoy to stop the bleeding.