Giants to Open Preseason With a Bigger Roster and an Older Blueprint

The New York Giants will open the preseason Saturday against the Minnesota Vikings with a new coaching staff, two additions to a run game that already ranked among the league's most productive last season, and a coach who says he wants a physical team.

First-year coach John Harbaugh has said as much since camp opened. "It's a big man's game. It's a strong man's game, but it's a fast man's game too," Harbaugh told reporters during the first week of training camp, tracing the idea to a Bill Parcells book he read early in his coaching career. "I read a book way back when I was just starting out in coaching by Bill Parcells, and I'll never forget one of the lines was he said football is a big man's game and I never forgot it. And now we have tried to build big teams if we could."

The Giants used the No. 10 overall pick, acquired from Cincinnati in the Dexter Lawrence trade, on Miami tackle Francis "Sisi" Mauigoa, and signed fullback Patrick Ricard, a six-time Pro Bowler who spent his first nine NFL seasons in Baltimore. Senior offensive assistant Greg Roman, who followed Harbaugh from the Ravens, is expected to move the offense toward downhill, gap-and-power run concepts instead of zone blocking.

Roman's Ravens led the NFL in yards before contact last season — how far a runner gets, on average, before a defender touches him — averaging 2.12 per carry to the Giants' 0.65, which ranked 15th, according to Sumer Sports data cited by SI's Giants Country.

Running back Cam Skattebo is the clearest example of the style the team is after. Skattebo, a fourth-round pick out of Arizona State in 2025, gained 617 yards from scrimmage and scored seven touchdowns on 125 touches in eight games as a rookie (highlights) before a dislocated ankle and fractured tibia ended his season in Week 8 against Philadelphia. His best game came in Week 3 against Kansas City, a 121-yard night.

He said the injury won't change how he plays.

"It ain't gonna change who I am," Skattebo said on NFL Network's "The Insiders" in June. "I'm going to get back [to] running people over like you see on the videos. It's going to be normal Cam Skattebo from here on out."

Skattebo was cleared for training camp and is competing with Tyrone Tracy Jr. for early-down work. He left one August practice early after a collision; Harbaugh called it minor.

"Iron sharpens iron," Tracy told Back Sports Page early in camp. "We're two different running backs. We complement each other really well."

In the same session, teammates offered similar reviews of Mauigoa. Defensive tackle DJ Reader called the rookie "heavy-handed" and said "he can get some push on you." Tackle Jermaine Eluemunor said Mauigoa "holds everyone accountable. That's rare in a young guy."

"We want to be a physical team," Harbaugh said. "We want to be a sound team. We want to play really hard."

For Giants fans of a certain era, the approach has a clear predecessor on the offensive side of the ball.

Brandon Jacobs, a fourth-round pick out of Southern Illinois in 2005, spent nine NFL seasons running through defenders rather than around them (career highlights). At 6-foot-4 and 264 pounds, he was among the largest running backs in the league, closer to a linebacker's size than a typical back's.

The Giants' 2007 playoff run showed both sides of him. In the divisional round at Texas Stadium on Jan. 13, 2008, Jacobs scored on a 1-yard run early in the fourth quarter to put the Giants ahead 21-17 — the score that held up — and celebrated by firing the football into the stadium's play clock. No penalty was called.

A week later came the best-remembered instance, on the first offensive snap of the NFC Championship Game at Lambeau Field on Jan. 20, 2008, in a wind chill that hit 24 below zero. Jacobs took the handoff and ran through Packers cornerback Charles Woodson, a play his teammates were still describing years later. "The tone was set on the opening play, when Brandon Jacobs ran over Charles Woodson," tackle David Diehl told Sports Illustrated in a 2017 oral history of the game. "Trucked over him," guard Rich Seubert said. Woodson, writing for ESPN in 2015, gave his own account: "I was out for a second after we made contact. Then I hit the ground and woke up." The Giants won 23-20 in overtime and advanced to the Super Bowl.

Two weeks later, trailing the undefeated New England Patriots 14-10, the Giants faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 37 on a drive that had started at the 17 with 2:39 left. The call went to Jacobs. In an oral history the Giants published in 2025, he said he had already told Patriots defensive end Richard Seymour what was coming — "I was like, 'I'm going to get this fourth-and-one'" — and he got it, though barely. Offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride, who called the play, recalled that Jacobs "made it by about two inches"; Sports Illustrated's game story that week put it at a foot. Three plays later, David Tyree pinned the ball against his helmet, and four plays after that, Plaxico Burress caught the winning touchdown.

The pattern held into the following season. Jacobs ran over Redskins safety LaRon Landry in the Giants' 2008 opener on Sept. 4. He was blunt about the reputation that came with it: when Cowboys cornerback Mike Jenkins called him a "bully" in December 2011, Jacobs took the label and used it. "I am a bully," he said. "I think people who call out bullies are afraid of bullies." Two weeks later, after a 29-14 win over the Jets on Dec. 24, 2011, Jacobs and Jets coach Rex Ryan confronted each other after the game, and Jacobs summarized his side to reporters: "The Jets have a big mouth, big belly coach that talks too much."

The numbers matched the reputation. Jacobs ran for 1,089 yards and 15 touchdowns in 13 games in 2008, and Derrick Ward ran for 1,025 in the same backfield, making the Giants the fourth pair of running backs in NFL history to each reach 1,000 yards in a season. With Ahmad Bradshaw as the third back, the group was nicknamed "Earth, Wind and Fire."

Jacobs spent eight of his nine NFL seasons with the Giants, taking over as the starter in 2007 after Tiki Barber retired and winning two Super Bowls, both against New England. He retired in 2014 with 5,087 rushing yards as a Giant, fourth in franchise history, and 60 rushing touchdowns, which is still the club record — five more than Barber.

Whether this year's group produces anything comparable is a question for the fall. Kickoff Saturday is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET at MetLife Stadium.