The bye week did a lot for the Giants and
in particular for Ahmad Bradshaw.
The rugged running back had a chance to
rest his nagging foot injury and showed as much burst as he has all year in
revitalizing the Giants’ running game Sunday night. He carried 10 times for a
5.8-yard average with a 13-yard TD in a 38-10 drubbing of Green Bay.
In all, the Giants gained 147 yards on 31
carries.
“The bye helped me a whole lot. I just felt more explosive today,”
Bradshaw said. “I’m not going through so much pain walking around. I just felt
thankful for that bye.”
Bradshaw ran hard and showed great
patience, waiting for his blocks to develop. And he was getting some great
looks from his blockers. They annihilated a pretty stout Packer front.
The best example came on his 13-yard
touchdown run late in the first half. Bradshaw did a little stutter step before
exploding through a hole created by Kevin Boothe’s block.
An almost surprising play call by offensive
coordinator Kevin Gilbride provided an opportunity to get both Eli Manning and
Bradshaw going on the opening series of the game.
The Giants don’t run a lot of screen
passes, at least successfully, but they threw it in as a new wrinkle during the
bye week and it paid off with a 59-yard gain to set up the first TD of the
game.
“We had a lot of great calls at the right times,” Bradshaw said.
“That screen was just a great call.”
It was the Giants’ best game running the
ball since they beat up on the 49ers in Week 6. It’s no coincidence they were
the two most impressive wins of the season. “I think it starts with the running
game and it just makes everybody on this team comfortable,” Bradshaw said. “It
was a great game and gives us a lot of confidence to push forward."
No comments:
Post a Comment