Giants Roster Rebuilding Season: Running Backs

The Giants could really use a good No. 2 behind starter Saquon Barkley.

Whether you agree with the decision two years ago to draft Saquon Barkley No. 2 overall or not, he’s here to stay.

With that said, the Giants have done themselves—and Barkley—absolutely no favors not just in terms of the personnel around him but in the fact that they haven’t been able to identify a solid No. 2 running back to help take some of the burdens off Barkley.

That not only needs to change, but it also needs to be a priority. The game seems to be getting faster and more violent every year, making the days of the workhorse back obsolete. While some teams still try to have that system and get lucky with it, the smart teams, if they are sincere about protecting their investment over the long term, find a way to balance the load better.

One can make the argument that Barkley is too good to take off the field for any plays. While it’s certainly true that it’s better to have him on the field, the Giants have survived when he’s taken a breather. 

In fact, during the three games he missed with injury, the team averaged 126.6 rushing yards per game; with him 110.1 yards per game. (The discrepancy is due in part to the defenses played and the emphasis of the game plan.)

Stats aside, if the Giants want to optimize Barkley’s time here, he needs a Robin to go along with his Batman.

RUNNING BACKS

Starter: Saquon Barkley (2nd season)
Backups: Wayne Gallman (3rd season), FB Eli Penny (3rd season)
Free Agent(s): Buck Allen (5th season)
Priority Level: High

Despite missing three games due to a high ankle sprain, Barkley still managed to crack 1,000 yards rushing—barely—for the second year in a row.

Barkley’s numbers were mostly on par with what he turned in during his rookie season if we adjust for the games missed.

But what Giants fans probably don’t want to see moving forward is quarterback Daniel Jones finishing as the second-leading rusher on the team, which he did with 45 carries for 270 yards. Jones, put, cannot be the No. 2 option in terms of rushing game production behind Barkley, so let’s hope that last year was simply an anomaly rather than the start of a trend.

It's really hard to say what happened with Wayne Gallman, who began the year as the No. 2 back behind Barkley, but we can point to comments made by the coaching staff later in the year in which they mentioned how Buck Allen had done things in practice to trigger this changing of the backup guard.  

It wasn’t hard to see why Allen might have gotten the nod ahead of Gallman. For starters, Allen averaged 4.0 yards after contact per attempt, which blew Gallman’s paltry 1.66 average out of the water, and which also was the best among the Giants running backs (with Barkley’s 3.23 average coming in second). 

The coaches thought Allen ran hard, and the numbers certainly supported this, as Allen had one less broken tackle (2) in 10 rushing attempts to Gallman’s three on 29 attempts.

Free Agent Possibility

Devontae Booker, 5-foot-11, 219 pounds, 27 years old (DEN)

If Allen isn’t re-signed, Devontae Booker might be worth a look in free agency. Booker, a fourth-round draft pick by the Broncos, has been buried out in Denver behind Philip Lindsay. Even before that, Booker was unable to beat out C.J. Anderson for the lead back role, so it’s fair to wonder if at this point all he’ll be is a reliable backup running back.

Booker has appeared in 61 games, rushing for 1,103 yards on 289 attempts in his career. He has a second gear and is difficult to get on the ground—he has a career average of 2.61 yards after contact per attempt, which isn’t bad.

But where Booker has excelled is as a receiver out of the backfield, where he has a career catch rate of 80.8%, having caught 105 receptions for 872 yards and one touchdown in his four-year career, a very respectable 8.3 yards per carry. Like Barkley, Booker can also be lined up in the slot and can run specific routes usually designated for the receiver.

Booker has a relatively clean injury history, his only known significant injury being a broken wrist suffered in 2017 for which he had surgery. If he’s used as a complementary back to Barkley—perhaps even in the two-back formation where on passing downs, his presence could offer another option—such an arrangement might prove beneficial.

Draft Possibility

Lamical Perine, 5-foot-11, 218 pounds, Florida

Perine, related to Washington running back Samaje Perine and Jacksonville Jaguars linebacker Myles Jack, brings the best of both worlds as a runner and receiver out of the backfield. He averaged 5.1 yards per carry for 676 yards with six touchdowns last season, adding 40 receptions for 262 yards and five touchdowns. On many of his runs,  he made something out of nothing.

His best season stats-wise was in 2018, where he had 826 rushing yards on 134 carries and seven rushing touchdowns, one shy of his single-season best eight recorded in 2017. That’s not bad production if you consider that Perine was part of a committee and that he took advantage of those opportunities when they came his way.

Perine isn’t the fastest runner out there, but he does have good vision and balance, which helps him in navigating through creases and traffic. He works off his blocking very well and has enough of a burst to get through to the second level and break tackles. And his pass-catching ability could make him an intriguing option if the Giants want to change things up and run a screen.

Like many young running backs, the pass protection aspect is still a part of the game that needs development. Perine will need to develop more power in his base to take that aspect of his game to the next level.

Bottom Line

If the Giants are going to pluck a running back out of the draft, don’t’ expect that to happen until Day 3—if it happens at all.

From a cost perspective, it would be less expensive to go the draft route. Still, the tradeoff is you’re giving up experience, as one of the most significant transitions young running backs need to learn quickly is how to pass protect at an acceptable level.

Some will argue that the Giants suffered without Barkley because they didn’t have an established running back in place, but the numbers tell a different story. The Giants averaged 126.6 rushing yards without Barkley, two-thirds of that average coming against very good defenses (Minnesota and New England).

Where the Giants had issues was where Gallman and Barkley ended up injured, and the team was left with rookies to carry the load. Not surprisingly, the team rushed for only 52 yards, their second-lowest total of the season, without Gallman and Barkley in the lineup.

With a new coaching staff coming in, it will be interesting to see if Gallman gets another chance or if the team decides to cut bait on yet another draft pick from the Jerry Reese era and go in a different direction despite so many more pressing needs elsewhere.