Brandon Jacobs: All Talk, No Play?

$4.65 million dollars is current rate for the New York Giants 6’4”, 264 lb. running back, Brandon Jacobs. Rumors, allegedly started by RB Brandon Jacobs, have been circulating lately that the New York Giants would not be able to afford to keep the pricey player on their roster for the upcoming 2011 season.  Can the Giants afford to lose Jacobs from their running game? General Manager, Jerry Reese, laughed off all speculations of Jacobs release on ESPN- NY1050.

“I guess you have to consider the source when Brandon starts talking. You can’t read a lot into what Brandon is saying sometimes. We do expect Brandon to be a part of the football team this fall. He is under contract. Brandon does talk a lot and like I said, sometimes you got to tune some of the stuff out that he is talking about.” 

Replaced by Ahmad Bradshaw as first string running back last season, some will argue that Jacobs isn’t the runner he used to be; however Jacobs’ 2010 stats tell a different story. Last season, as second string, Jacobs had an astounding 5.6 yards per carry and 9 touchdowns. Why was he replaced? Maybe the issue isn’t that Jacobs is constantly being run to the outside when he’s clearly a downhill runner, or even that he is recently unsure of how to use his enormous size to his advantage during the run; maybe this issue is that he is spending too much time running his mouth rather than running routes.

As GM Jerry Reese told EPSN-NY 1050, “He is just talking. Brandon likes to talk; sometimes he just talks to talk. Us here, in the Giants, in our building, we let some of that talk go off our backs like a duck and we don’t worry about it too much”.