Frustration Keeps Rising for Jacobs, Not Giants

Frustration Keeps Rising for Jacobs, Not Giants

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The only person in the Giants’ camp who seems to be at all concerned with Brandon Jacobs’s slipping productivity is Brandon Jacobs.
Jacobs, the Giants’ starting running back, has repeatedly expressed frustration with his season so far, even amid the team’s first 5-0 start since 1990. With 355 yards rushing, he is only 92 yards short of his mark at this point last season, which he ended with 1,089 yards and a four-year, $25 million contract extension.
The way his coaches see it, they are not being shortchanged in the least.
A day after Coach Tom Coughlin gave Jacobs a vote of confidence after practice, the offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride echoed the sentiment. Jacobs’s value, he said, goes far beyond what shows up in a statistics line. Because of his size and physical presence, Jacobs is useful as a blocker and can simply wear down a defense, Gilbride said.
“Just keep playing,” Gilbride said he told Jacobs. “We aren’t disappointed at all. You’re a big part of what we do. You can express your contributions as a runner and also as a pass protector.”
What may be making this season more difficult for Jacobs to deal with is the relative success of the second running back on the depth chart, Ahmad Bradshaw. He leads the team with 375 yards rushing and has averaged 6.5 yards a carry, compared with Jacobs’s 3.6.
Jacobs is clearly irked by this year’s constant comparisons to Bradshaw by the news media. On Thursday, he insisted again that such comparisons did not make much sense because he played a radically different style from Bradshaw’s fleet-footed bob-and-weave.
“Me, I am 6-4, 265 pounds,” Jacobs said. “I am supposed to run into people. I am supposed to take somebody on. That’s me. If I don’t do that, I am terrible.”
Then in no uncertain terms, Jacobs instructed the cluster of reporters around his locker that he would keep talking only if they wanted to discuss the Giants’ success or their matchup Sunday against the 4-0 New Orleans Saints. If not, he added sharply, they should get away from his locker.
No one did. Instead, he was asked whether he saw himself as a player who could set the tone for the team. After initially dismissing the question, Jacobs answered it, although he seemed upset, then ended the interview.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “I am going out and just running into people. I’m 6-4 and 265 pounds, doing what I am supposed to do, running into people to get a 2-yard loss. Happy?”
Facing the Saints’ stifling run defense — it has allowed only 333 yards all season and 83.2 a game — may not be the best thing for Jacobs’s morale. But the Giants are hoping he will embrace his first trip to New Orleans as a professional, a chance to leave another mark near where he grew up.
Jacobs was raised in Napoleonville, La., population 700, about 60 miles west of New Orleans, and has spent a lifetime trying to prove people wrong. When he was little more than a hot-headed youngster, a network of relatives and educators banded together to set him back on the straight and narrow. He expects 45 of them to be in the Superdome on Sunday.
Jacobs said the most important skill they taught him was the one that changed his life — how to channel his aggressive energy into football. From special education classes, he made it to community college. From community college, he made it to Auburn and Southern Illinois, his springboard to the N.F.L. Gilbride said it was the same steely temperament that would allow him to overcome his slow start to the season. Or at least his perception of it.
“He is frustrated, he is disappointed, and rather than give in and surrender, I think he is going to dig down deeper,” Gilbride said. “That is his makeup, particularly when you talk about him going home.”