If Tracy had an identical rookie season, but had been picked in the 1st-2nd round instead of the 5th last season, I think there would be more reluctance to assume that a 4th round rookie RB was going to nudge him aside right away. There's a middle ground between being too reactive and not reactive enough. It's still possible Tracy will be a long-term JAG, but a lot of these posts are pretty quick to gloss over what he accomplished last season.
We have some pretty compelling evidence that his game translates to the NFL whereas it's still a pure projection with Skattebo. Skattebo himself is not regarded as an elite talent (high 4th round pick). It's a bit of a stretch to assume he's going to be better, though it's certainly within the realm of possibility. Given how cheap they both are, I don't think it would be malpractice to insure your Tracy pick by also rostering Skattebo. At the same time, the burden of proof is very much on the rookie and not the guy who already looks like he can play (and already beat out Devin Singletary last season).
This is an excellent take. When you add in some of the glowing camp reports, Tracy seems like a candidate to be one of those guys who has a big year and we look back and wonder why he was overlooked in drafts.
Adding running back depth is something the Giants had to do but I get the distinct feeling (and every job should be a competition) that they were leaving the door really wide open for Skattebo. I don't think that the idea of Skattebo is going away unless the young man flops on his face, and I don't see him doing that. They already know how slow he is and yet they still drafted him, so unless it's egregiously bad speed won't be a deterrent. Nothing about those college games seems to indicate that he goes away without serious effort. And what I worry about is that Tracy—with his style and what I believe is a more effective way to run in the pros—gets his carries whittled away by a decent amount because coaches sometimes fall in love with the physicality of certain runs even if they're less effective than a run with less contact. And I've seen it and the coaches always come up with unquantifiable reasons why they're choosing the less effective runs by telling you that it sets up other huge plays or that those runs are part of a winning strategy whereby they wear a defense down.
And I'm sure there is something to that, and all other things constant, it's probably more desirable to have a huge guy landing blows and running so hard the defense hates tackling him. But I get frustrated and a tad irritated because I don't believe their assertion that the inefficiency is rewarded later on and that the team scores more points even if they're less efficient, but it's not a falsifiable reason or a rebuttable assertion. I can't disprove it. And so I'm watching it play out in two dormant East Rutherford franchises and not only does it affect my two best dynasty RBs, but I also think it's objectively wrong. You can't quantify it and the banger the coaches love might not be as effective as my preferred guy in any measurable way, but hot damn we're going to bang him in there anyway! ROAR! LIFE!
There was a lot of reading of the tea leaves on Tracy vs Skat all offseason. The take above is looking quite accurate to me all the way around.
It’s too early to say whether Tracy or Skat ends up being the more effective NFL player but it sure looks like the Giants drafted Skat with a plan and want to make him at least the Thunder in this backfield and perhaps the full-on bell cow. For any with Tracy shares, TT played about 30% of snaps and was back there returning kickoffs, a huge downgrade for a versatile young player with very good film last season who many of us had seen as underrated.
I’m sometimes guilty of reading too much into the intangibles but did anyone see all of Skat’s teammates mobbing him in celebration when he scored? He seems like a beloved player in that locker room. While Skat’s good week 2 film moments were peppered in with some carries where he looked INCREDIBLY slow, him winning the emotional war with his teammates and coaches certainly won’t hurt his stock as he starts his young career.
Thanks for the charitable reading, electric Ape. I have a very hard time these days with assessing things in relation to my own players and I freely admit that there's a potential for bias in how I read things, so I try to be as exacting with myself as possible so that what I'm thinking or writing is part of a process that will prove fruitful. And what I'm mystified by in this case is not necessarily that I didn't foresee his teammates responding. I actually did due to my own athletic experience and background. I played hockey all of my life, and I was a finesse forward in that sport, and I was also a kicker for what was a D-1A program that they would now call an FCS program. Both of those situations and proclivities were actually (not so much hockey because I—and if you'll pardon the bragging for a minute—accrued a ****-ton of points in hockey, especially goals, so it was accepted that I wasn't a meathead on the ice) very humbling because I have first-hand experience how it is weird to be a male who is outside of the physical demands and body type of his colleagues or teammates. It's actually sort of sad, in a way, to be on the outside of the gladiator sport you're all supposed to be united in playing. So there is nothing at all that surprises me about a coach or a player embracing that sort of physicality on an almost spiritual and motivational level.
That's why I was able to write that paragraph or two even though my first reaction is that a 4.7 will not cut it in the NFL. In addition to that, Skattebo has ridiculous burst or jumping ability. I think his vertical was second among all of the running backs in the draft. You can verify that if you wish, but he was awfully close to being either the best broad or vert jump. So all that said, Tracy's pedestrian efforts the back half of last year and the beginning of this one, his unbelievably stupid choice to pipe up on Friday afternoon and criticize Daboll's goal-to-go playcalling, and the simple issue that something has to change or Daboll loses his job means that Tyrone Tracy is no longer a viable start as far as I'm concerned. He's no longer the RB2 I desperately need.
So I take what you're saying and agree with it. In the game that we just saw, which was a completely emotional whirlwind, Skattebo helped bring the mail home. He ran hard on some well-designed plays and continued his collegiate ways. It was said those ways wouldn't translate to the pros, but the only thing that doesn't translate will be how the defensive lines will be able to handle him better than the collegiate ones. Once the second level is hit, forget it. The college secondaries at the DI national level are close to about as big (I think so please don't hold me to that) as the pros are—at the pro level, the secondary is there to cover and ball hawk (aside from one of the safeties). So I think there really isn't any silver lining for the Tracy GM. The only way Tracy steps back into his role is if Skattebo begins to fumble, if Skattebo gets dinged-up to the point where he's even slower, if Skattebo gets hurt (natch), or if Skattebo is noticeably ineffective, where the operative word is "noticeably." I doubt the coaches will see it.
One last thing is the Skattebo ran so well that I might have to retract that Tracy's style is indeed objectively better. I'm not so sure. In all, a bad day for us Tracy owners.
