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E-GIANTS By DAVE KLEIN He is a running back, yet his dimensions are 6-3 and 267. He is a running back, yet he was timed at 4.4 FLAT in the 40-yard dash. As E-GIANTS subscriber Scott L. offers: "That would be Matt Jones [the 6-6,240-pound wide receiver drafted in the first round] reincarnated. I'll bet Tiki [Barber] can't run 4.4 at this stage in his career." Right you are, Scott, although Jacobs was advertised by the Giants when they drafted him out of Southern Illinois as a guy with 4.56 speed (which is still delightful for someone who weighs that much), no one ever mentioned 4.4 flat.. Well, one guy did, a team beat writer for one of those scandal sheets whose motto is: Get a better back page headline and you'll get a raise. This guy said coaches at SIU "will swear" that he was timed in a 4.0 prior to the start of the Salukis' football season, and that he had a 4.52 at his "pro day" on the school campus. It has also been suggested that he has had several experiences with 4.45 and 4.47 for various men holding stop watches and undoubtedly breathing heavily. Well, who knows? Maybe he was running a 35-yard dash instead of the Holy Grail of 40 yards. Maybe 37 yards? If he really has the capability of running a 4.0 flat, then there is no question he would have been a first round pick, right up there with his one-time college teammates at Auburn, Ronnie Brown (drafted second overall) and Cadillac Williams (drafted fifth overall). As the story goes, Jacobs saw that he wasn't going to get much time with the ball in his hands during a real game, so he opted to transfer to SIU. So far, it makes sense. But if he was so highly recruited out of high school that Auburn (after he did some hard time at a junior college) offered him a scholarship, wouldn't another major school (no offense intended to SIU) have been intensely interested once he decided to bail out of Auburn? Where were Alabama and Oklahoma and Tennessee and Florida State and Miami? Surely they would have been interested in a skyscraper who can run like a gazelle. But Jacobs was allowed to wander off to SIU, a Division-1AA school, and he did reasonably well there in his senior season. He carried the ball 150 times, gained 1,012 yards and scored 19 touchdowns. Holy Power Back, Batman, this is the real deal. One scouting service (Great Blue North Draft Report, which has always been far more right than wrong, and often in the face of the Great Guru Kiper), said this about Jacobs: "When he keeps his feet moving, shoulders squared and heads upfield, Jacobs is an explosive power runner who reminds [scouts] of a young Jerome Bettis. On the other hand, when he stays flat-footed and tries to outrun people, he looks more like Ron Dayne." How's that for diametric opposites? To compare Jacobs to Bettis is almost scandalous. The Giants haven't been that lucky since they found Tiki in the second round -- and he was small enough to deserve being drafted there. But a moose at 6-3 and 267 who can run with any back in the league? Something is a little fishy here. It should be noted that 2004 was his only year at SIU, and that he did have a 2003 year at Auburn -- where he carried the ball 72 times, gained 466 yards and scored three touchdowns. Coincidentally, his per-carry average of 6.5 at Auburn was virtually the same as his per-carry average of 6.7 at SIU. And as another indication that he is familiar with the game, he carried 11 times in the East-West Shrine game Jan. 15, 2005, gaining 102 yards which included a 52-yard touchdown burst. Can he be for real? Can it be that the Giants have their short-yardage machine? As head coach Tom Coughlin himself (should that be with a capital H?) said: "It is depressing to an offense to march downfield and then fail on a third and one situation." True enough, coach, and one supposes that even the best offenses in the land sometimes come up with one yard necessary to keep the drive going. When Jacobs was drafted, he was put on a conference call with the gathering of media in the basement of Giants Stadium. Someone asked this question: "Are you aware that for three years or so the Giants have had trouble on third down and short yardage?" Some of those present will swear that he said: "Not any more." Now THAT you've got to like in a kid, who also admitted he's a little heavy and would like to play this season at 260. Yeah, those seven pounds will really make a difference, right? Remember, he is 6-3 (well, damned near 6-4) and he weighs 267 pounds. He has a vertical leap of 37 inches. He scored a 20 in the 42-question Wonderlic test, not bad at all considering what other draft picks (higher ones) came in with. He is a gigantic back who might find himself working out as a blocking tight end, but one who shows up in the backfield when it's third-and-one or, Heaven forbid, fourth and one. Oh, yeah, the last major hope for a short yardage power back was Ron Dayne. He was a certifiable embarrassment and he is now anticipating competition in Denver. But he was a first round pick, making it far worse. If Jacobs is as billed, he might be one of those incredible draft bargains the Giants sometimes trip over, like Mark Bavaro and Billy Ard and George Martin and Harry Carson. Have we gone too far? Perhaps. Check out Dave's website at E-GIANTS
where you can subscribe to his newsletters which run much more frequently than what is available here. NEW - Send a request to davesklein@aol.com for a free week's worth of news!
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