There was a lot of concern among the New York Giants brass this offseason when star running back Saquon Barkley defected to the Philadelphia Eagles via free agency.
Team co-owner John Mara even told general manager Joe Schoen that he would have “a tough time sleeping” if Saquon left the Giants for the Eagles.
Schoen did his best to retain Barkley but, in the end, had to let him go. He had his Plan B in place. He would go with a running back by committee approach and began that by signing former Buffalo Bill and Houston Texan Devin “Motor” Singletary to head that committee.
The rest of the backfield would be filled by second-year player Eric Gray and rookies Tyron Tracy Jr. and Dante “Turbo” Miller.
One game into the preseason, we are seeing the fog lift on Schoen’s vision. The Giants rushed for 155 yards and an average of 5.7 yards per attempt against Detroit on Thursday — and Singletary did not play.
Gray excelled as did the rookies. Suddenly, no one was talking about Barkley any longer. That was fast.
Head coach Brian Daboll appeared unfazed on Friday. He knows what he has on his roster and liked what he saw from his young backs.
“I thought they were decisive,” Daboll told reporters. “I thought there wasn’t a lot of stutter stepping. I thought they were hitting the hole with good vision. They ran in space. Gray had a nice catch there from Tommy (DeVito). It wasn’t perfect, but most of the time they were going forward. They ran hard. They got their pads down. They did a nice job for the first game.”
Of course, there will be a pecking order come the regular season with Singletary at the top. After all, there are more aspects to the running back job than making positive yards. You have to be able to block and pass protect as well to get — and stay — on the field.
“I think I’ve had a lot of questions on that early on about the youth of that room,” Daboll said. “You let them play.” “I thought they did a good job in protections, knowing who to block. It wasn’t overly complicated, but they did stick their face in there and fit the window and block some blitzers.
“They ran hard. They knew what to do. Again, it’ll be good competition for all those young players, but I think (running backs coach) Joel Thomas has done a fantastic job with the development of that youth room.”
Either way. the fans are now more at ease with the decision to let Barkley walk. Mara should be as well.
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