Tom Rock: Giants should be running to make a trade and bolster RB room ahead of playoff push
The Giants trading for Colts running back Jonathan Taylor makes too much sense. Credit: Getty Images/Michael Hickey
PHILADELPHIA — The Giants walked out of Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday with a statement win, a stranglehold on the division and a clear path to the postseason.
It also gave them less than 48 hours to turn all of that into something that can be even better.
An already hectic week featuring this game against the Eagles and the upcoming Thursday night home contest against the Commanders has the NFL trade deadline right plop in the middle of the action. So while the Giants’ 19-11 victory showcased a lot of the positives that have gotten them this far — resilience, toughness, timeliness — it also laid open their shortcomings going forward.
It left the Giants with two choices. They can be satisfied with being a likely playoff team or they can be aggressive, put the finishing touches on the roster, spackle the holes they have and become a dangerous one.
Here’s one vote for the latter.
The Giants should do all they can to bolster their personnel for the second half of this season and take advantage of the position in which they suddenly find themselves. They need to do all they can to make sure this opportunity is not lost.
If that means reigniting trade talks with the Colts (who lost again on Sunday) regarding the acquisition of running back Jonathan Taylor, do it. If it means picking up some another running back who can help, do it.
No one really expected the NFC East-leading Giants (5-2-1) to be in this spot at this point, but they are. It should be celebrated . . . but it shouldn’t be cemented.
Oh, here’s another vote in favor. One with more importance than that of a silly columnist.
“If the right opportunity comes and there is a deal that makes sense, we’ll do it,” John Harbaugh said after the game. “We’re making a lot of calls. We’re calling everybody.”
They should keep doing it.
The Giants’ inability to run effectively was one of their biggest deficiencies on Sunday. They gained only 80 yards on the ground on 31 carries. Two of their three longest runs were by their quarterbacks — J.J. McCarthy hobbling around on one good leg and Jameis Winston plodding along on 32-year-old ones.
The deficiency meant that when the Giants got the ball back up by eight points with 1:56 left in the game, they were unable to close it out. They went three-and-out, punted it away and had to rely on their defense to make a stop against a quarterback in his first NFL start to seal the win.
The Eagles never got across midfield, but they were two dropped passes and two receivers who couldn’t get out of bounds when they did catch the ball away from making the end of this game much more interesting than it should have been.
Part of that was because of injuries at the running back position. Tyrone Tracy Jr. is on injured reserve and will miss at least the next three games. Cam Skattebo was inactive because of a hamstring injury he suffered two weeks ago. That left Devin Singletary as the only running back on the team who had taken a handoff for the Giants this season.
Things will be different when Tracy and Skattebo return? Maybe. Or maybe they’ll get hurt again. Or someone else will. In all honesty, can the Giants say their running game has ever been what they wanted it to be at any point this year?
The Giants have wanted to upgrade the backfield since the offseason, when they were sniffing around free agent Kenneth Walker III and doing deep pre-draft dives on Jeremiyah Love. Neither of those situations worked out, mostly because they weren’t in control of all the circumstances.
This time they are.
And it’s not as if bringing in a game-changing player will upset any precious balance in the locker room. “If they can get playmakers, the more the merrier,” tight end Isaiah Likely said.
“If somebody wants to come help us, come on and come help us, man,” added defensive tackle D.J. Reader.
Harbaugh did say that there was nothing “imminent” as of early Sunday evening. He warned against making deals with short-term benefits. And he said he doesn’t believe in any team being “one player away or one step away or anything.”
Fox reported on Sunday morning that the Giants pulled their offer of a second- and a fifth-round future draft pick off the table in talks with the Colts for Taylor, information that Harbaugh did not deny.
But Harbaugh also said this:
“Things change from day to day. One day you may do something and the next day something happens and it changes your position on things . . . Those conversations are taking place.”
Things for the Giants changed on Sunday — for the better. They left the team in a much more beneficial position. As Jermaine Eluemunor said after the game, “People think [the division] is wide open, but I don’t think it’s wide open.”
They also changed in regard to what this team should be aiming for.
Winning the NFC East title is a good objective. The Giants haven’t done that since 2011. This team as currently built probably can accomplish that. “They have what it takes,” Harbaugh said of the players.
But why let that be the goal? Why stop there?
Take the shot, Giants. If the past has taught us anything, it may be a long time before you get this close to doing something epically special again anytime soon.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
