During his 20 seasons as a college assistant, Burton Burns was considered among the very best. He coached Mark Ingram (2009) and Derrick Henry (2015) to Heisman Trophies, and very nearly did the same with Trent Richardson (2011).
Now Burns is with the New York Giants, where he’ll coach one of the NFL’s electric young running back, Saquon Barkley.
Alabama’s Nick Saban, who had added Burns to the Crimson Tide staff, believes he’ll serve the Giants well and not only get the most out of Barkley, but Dion Lewis and the team’s other backs as well.
“I think, first of all, Burton is a very fundamental type running backs coach,” Saban told Giants.com. “He has a really good grasp of how players need to press holes, read plays, read blocks, and he’s really helped in the development of our players here because of that. Because a lot of guys that are great running backs, especially when we get them, they just get the ball and run with it. They don’t understand that you’re setting up blocks and you’re helping people create holes by how you actually take the correct steps, have the right point of attack relative to aiming point and how that’s going to impact and affect your chances to have a successful run on that particular play. Same thing in pass protection. He breaks it down. Players understand it.”
Although Burns is a strict fundamentalist, he also has an engaging personality that players tend to gravitate towards.
“Burton is just a really good, fundamental coach. He’s got a great personality, players love him, they love playing for him and he does a really good job. But he will get on them now and confront and demand that they do things at a certain level, which is always something with some of the high-profile guys here,” Saban added.
Despite Barkley’s ridiculous numbers over his first two seasons, the Giants have not been able to run the ball consistently, instead leaning heavily on Barkley’s ability to break off one or two long runs per game.
Part of the reason for those struggles has been an under-performing offensive line, which was another area the Giants and general manager Dave Gettleman addressed this offseason. So combined with Burns’ coaching, we should see a much more productive and consistent ground attack in 2020.
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