As the big, bad Panthers come to town with the hottest running tandem in the league, the Giants are hoping running back Brandon Jacobs can lug the football on Sunday and restore the team’s physical presence that’s been sorely missing during a two-game slide.
In vogue at the moment are Carolina’s DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart, twin battering rams who turn seemingly innocent handoffs into game-changing runs. Out of fashion is Jacobs, whose production has dropped as the swelling in his left knee has risen. He didn’t even play in last week’s loss in Dallas.
MORE: Complete Giants Coverage
“Let me get something straight, we’re still No. 1 in the league,” Jacobs proclaimed of the Giants’ rushing attack. “The last couple games, three games we played haven’t been very good and we’re still No. 1 in the league. No matter how many yards some team chunk up we were that far ahead.”
Those are not the words of someone who expects to sit anything out, and indeed, he returned to practice yesterday and is fully expecting to play in Sunday’s NFC showdown. The No. 1 seed in the conference awaits the winner, high stakes indeed.
“Very seldom in the regular season does it get this big,” Panthers coach John Fox said.
Very seldom does a running back grow as big as the 6-foot-4, 264-pound Jacobs, who has amassed 1,002 yards despite tearing his left posterior cruciate ligament in the fifth game of the season. He was forced out of the game two weeks ago against the Eagles and sat out vs. the Cowboys. The Giants lost both. They need him back.
“He’s kind of like that fire-starter,” Justin Tuck said. “For us, getting him back would be huge and it definitely would put us in a position to get back to our style of football.”
The specter of a three-game losing skid in December is not a scenario the Giants want to consider, and they were an upbeat group. The mood was set by an almost euphoric (for him) Tom Coughlin, who during his weekly press conference alternated between excited and almost preacher-like in his zeal for what awaits the Giants this weekend.
At one point, standing behind a lectern, he actually started doing jumping-jacks for no apparent reason, getting through two of them before cracking himself up.
“How could it be any better than this?” Coughlin said, eyes widening. “It is terrific. Can you imagine being this time of year, being 11-3 and playing at home for the chance to have a first-round bye and play at home throughout the playoffs? Think about that; just think about it a minute. If you can’t be excited about this, I’m not sure what the heck you can be excited about.”
Asked about the after-effects of losing the past two games, Coughlin playfully came up with selective amnesia. “What are you talking about?” he asked, smiling. “What two weeks? Forget about yesterday. What matters is this coming weekend.”
It sounds as if whatever Coughlin was handing out was taken in.
“We’re right where we want to be. We have a game at home and a chance to lock things up,” guard Chris Snee said.
No one inside the locker room was taken aback by the antics of the head coach.
“I know everyone knows him as commander Tom Coughlin but he’s a guy who’s very passionate about what he does, he has no problem showing it toward us,” Tuck said.
“Was he silly?” asked Antonio Pierce. “He might have had too much coffee. I don’t know what’s going on with Coach Coughlin. But that’s how you’ve got to be. I mean, it’s a new week, we can’t dwell on the last two weeks. We’re facing a very talented Carolina Panthers team who are coming in here expecting to beat us and run the ball up and down our throat.”
That is exactly what the Giants – with Jacobs back where he belongs – plan on doing to the Panthers.
“It does allow us, I think, to establish again who we are and the physical tone,” Coughlin said of Jacobs’ return. “And that is, to me, what has been what we need. We need to have that physical tone again.”