Gary Myers of ESPN Radio, who has been pretty well plugged in this offseason, says that while the Giants still want to add to their running back room, they are not planning to shop at the high end of the free-agent market. That would preclude them from getting into the Kenneth Walker III (Seahawks) sweeps.
We tend to agree with Myers's report and see it as making sense. We never believed the speculation coming out of the combine that the Giants had interest in Walker, and that’s not because he’s not a good enough player.
Rather, our disbelief was rooted in the fact that the move just didn’t make sense financially.
The Giants, even with more cap cuts expected, do not have oodles of cap space to spend on luxuries like Walker, who is likely to fetch top dollar on the free agency market thanks in part to his Super Bowl heroics.
That the Giants were able to retain Devin Singletary on a reduced contract pretty much sealed the deal that they are looking to have a committee rather than a bell cow, as Harbaugh had with Derek Henry in Baltimore
That appears to be the direction for the Giants, who, if they follow the Ravens’ pattern, are going to place more of an emphasis on the power rushing game. Since 2020, no team has had more rushing attempts or rushing yards in regular-season games than the Ravens (3,200 attempts for 16,782 yards).
Over that same span, the Giants have posted 2,727 rushing attempts for 11,827 yards, 16th in the league.
The Ravens have also led the league in average rushing yards per attempt over that span (5.2) to the Giants’ 4.3 yards per attempt.
If the Giants, under Harbaugh, are going to emphasize the power rushing game, they will need to have a deep running back rotation.
That means the addition of a fourth back who is not expected to break the bank is certain to be on their wish list—and no, we don’t think that Jeremiyah Love of Notre Dame, the top running back prospect in this year’s class, is the target either.
The question then becomes if they add a running back and a fullback, the latter a position that Harbaugh’s teams have carried, or do they go in a different direction?
The fullback question could boil down to who the Giants sign at tight end. Daniel Bellinger has experience playing the position, so if he’s brought back, he could fill that role.
Cam Skattebo, although not the ideal size for full-time fullback duty, could help with lead blocking, and, to a degree, so too could Singletary, which would give the Giants a committee of lead blockers.
The bigger question is how the running back committee the Giants are building would play out, in terms of skill sets that give them the most diversified offering to deploy each week.
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