The Backfield Math No Longer Works, and Nine Games Remain

Here is the number that matters most right now: 437. That is how many rushing yards Cam Skattebo has produced across seven games — the clear engine of a running game that was already modest by any honest accounting. Now Skattebo may have a hamstring issue of his own after feeling something late in the Houston win, and the man behind him on the depth chart is Devin Singletary, who has carried the ball in six games and produced 123 rushing yards. That is your entire functional backfield. Tyrone Tracy Jr. is on injured reserve with a hamstring injury of his own, and the Giants have already signaled they are not pursuing a significant trade to address the void.

What makes this precarious is not just the headcount — it is the specific nature of the injuries. Both Skattebo and Tracy went down with hamstring problems, and now Skattebo is in a watch-and-wait situation after the Houston game. Hamstrings do not negotiate. They flare, they linger, they end seasons when pushed too hard in October. The Giants signed Gregory Desrosiers to fill out the roster, and he appears third on the depth chart, but there is a meaningful difference between a depth signing and a player who can carry a contending offense's ground game when the top two options are compromised.

The irony is that this team built its identity around running the ball. The power-running vision that John Harbaugh brought to New York was supposed to be the foundation — the thing that would make them structurally different from the 4–13 disaster of last season. And for stretches, it worked. Skattebo gave them a genuine lead back. The committee functioned. The point differential stabilized. But committee backfields are inherently fragile, and when two of your three contributors go down with the same type of injury within days of each other, the committee model breaks.

The Giants are 5–2–1 with nine games left and a magic number of 10. That record is real — I have not wavered on that — and the execution in close games this year has been a genuine reversal from the 1–6 collapse in tight contests that defined 2025. But those close wins required a functional ground game to control tempo and keep Jameis Winston in manageable situations. Winston has been steady with 7 touchdowns against 5 interceptions, but he is not the kind of quarterback who thrives when an offense becomes one-dimensional by necessity rather than by design.

My read is this: the Giants can survive a week or two of Singletary as the primary back if Skattebo's hamstring is minor. Singletary is a professional; he has scored twice and caught the ball efficiently out of the backfield. But nine games is not two games. If Skattebo misses meaningful time, the offense will have to shift more weight onto Isaiah Likely and the passing game — which puts more pressure on Winston to limit turnovers at exactly the moment defenses can pin their ears back. The Giants beat Houston 27–21 with this roster. The schedule does not get easier, and the backfield just got significantly thinner.