NFL Analyst Hands Head-Scratching Ranking to Giants Running Back

Since Saquon Barkley left the team for Philadelphia in free agency, the New York Giants running backs have been one of the biggest concerns on the roster heading into 2024. While the team made efforts to retool the backfield amid their offseason moves, there seems to be skepticism looming as to whether it will perform up to snuff, including from a notable former All-Pro ball carrier turned analyst. 

After Barkley’s departure to the NFC East rival, the Giants had a slew of signings to fill in the gaping void left by arguably the most impactful player in their offense. At the forefront was partnering with Devin Singletary, the former Bills and Texans running back with ties to head coach Brian Daboll from his days as the Buffalo offensive coordinator, to assume Barkley’s place as the lead dog for a position group that held a subpar ranking in all the major rushing statistics last fall. 

While he is by no means the type of talent Barkley was for six seasons in New York, Singletary was highly regarded as a serviceable back that could give the Giants offense 15-25 quality handoffs per game in the No. 1 role behind an improved offensive line.

That is unless you are four-time Pro Bowl rusher Maurice Jones-Drew, a current NFL.com analyst who ranked Singletary as the 32nd-best starting running back in the league ahead of the 2024 season. 

Jones-Drew, who made these same predictions last preseason and had a slew of incorrect ones on both ends of the chart, is no stranger to making questionable projections like this. However, he is not buying into the idea that Singletary will keep the Giants' run game afloat on the heels of a career-high campaign for the Houston Texans.

Citing a lack of flashiness to his game and uncertainties about the complexion of the Giants’ starting front, Jones-Drew believes Singletary will have a reverse campaign from the one he had in 2023 when he finished 18th and 21st in attempts and rushing yards, respectively. He opines that Singletary will receive less attention this season as a result of the Giants' emphasis on throwing the ball with a healthy Daniel Jones.

In a 2023 world, the aforementioned numbers would place him above almost half of the competition in this year’s pool of starting ball carriers. Instead, Singletary got ranked lower than 12 players with less production and 16 with fewer years of service than he acquired in 17 games last season, all of which creates nothing but a head-scratching take of the Giants' new running back by Jones-Drew.

For starters, there has been nothing about Singletary’s NFL career that signals him slowing down or having a lesser involvement in his team’s offensive game plan. In his last three seasons, the 26-year-old has consistently boosted his total rushing production in two different systems with the Bills and Texans, including his third consecutive 800+ yard and four touchdown effort last year in a Houston offense that was similarly loaded at wide receiver.

In that span, Singletary racked up 216 carries for 898 yards and four rushing touchdowns, a stat line nobody other than Barkley has touched for the Giants over the past several seasons. He averaged a rep of 4.2 yards per, which is right in the middle of the pack for runningbacks and these stats pushed the Texans to 20th and 22nd rankings in both attempts and yards per Pro Football Reference.  

Singletary is also a player who can push his talents out wide and add some work in the passing game, making that potential focus in the Giants offense irrelevant. He’s collected at least 30 targets and 228 receiving yards in three of his last four seasons and averages 6.7 yards per catch to this point. That makes it clear that he can offer something to that phase if the Giants need it, especially with injuries stacking up to some of their other ball carriers in camp. 

In terms of that offensive line for the Giants, it’s a much-improved unit that’s slated to have some of the best overall blockers in the league, notably Andrew Thomas and Jon Runyan who were both Top-10 in pass-blocking metrics alone last season, protecting and opening up holes for Singletary to burst through. 

It’ll be hard to be worse than the 31st-ranked run block win rate the Giants posted in 2023, but even so, some early struggles won’t be a surprise for a guy like Singletary who came from the 25th-positioned group in Houston. If he has to, he has become accustomed to learning how to fight for his extra yards in the trenches and will use that “Motor” of his to do so until he earns that improved help. 

That same motor is what will give Singletary more attention than Jones-Drew is offering him. He might not be as flashy or fast as Barkley was in the open field, but he is a bruiser and the Giants are not going to abandon the run game as a result. They will instead relish the old days of hard-nosed, upfield running reincarnated by their new starter, which is something Daboll clearly enjoyed in Buffalo and will like to take advantage of to complement his passing attack. 

Simply put, when Singletary gets placed all the way at the bottom of Jones-Drew’s preseason rankings, it’s truly shocking. Even placing him further down the chart than a couple of rookies or second-year players who barely have their feet wet in the NFL is a sign of disrespect to the type of guy the veteran has become and his sustainable rushing. 

Nobody says he is going to be Saquon Barkley, but the Giants' rushing department isn’t going to collapse because he is the new head honcho in East Rutherford. Do better Maurice Jones-Drew.

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