Two preseason games, two mistakes, and a running back room that keeps getting more crowded. Tyrone Tracy Jr. has put himself in a difficult position with eight days left before cutdown.
The first came in the opener against Minnesota, when Tracy whiffed on a blitz pickup and let Jay Ward through free for a crushing hit on Jaxson Dart, who went to the blue medical tent. John Harbaugh was not happy about it afterward, calling it a basic protection that should have been handled.
The Giants brought in Najee Harris for a tryout that same week and signed him to a one-year minimum deal worth $1.215 million with no guaranteed money.
Then in Miami on Saturday, Tracy was having a good afternoon. He ripped off a couple of nice runs, his blitz pickups were cleaner, and the Giants were driving. On second-and-4 from the 10, he put the ball on the ground and Miami recovered.
Harbaugh isn’t writing him off
The coach’s public position is that two plays don’t erase everything else.
“Nobody feels worse about it than he does,” Harbaugh said.
He pointed out that Tracy had numerous good runs and catches in the game, that the pass protection was fine, and that the rest of the day graded out as a plus. That is a defense, not a dismissal, and it comes from a staff that did not draft him.
The résumé backs Harbaugh up. Tracy has two straight seasons with more than 1,000 scrimmage yards. His 83.3 percent pass block win rate last season was right there with Devin Singletary’s 84.6 and well ahead of Cam Skattebo’s 66.7, which makes the Minnesota play look more like a lapse than a pattern.
Ball security is the harder case. Tracy fumbled five times as a rookie in 2024, roughly once every 46 touches, then cut that to one all of last season. The Miami giveaway reopened a file the Giants thought was closed.
The math is unforgiving
New York can realistically keep four backs. Skattebo is the lead back and did not play a snap in Miami, which is how teams treat players whose jobs are settled. Harris was signed to contribute, not to sit fourth. Singletary ran for 40 yards and a touchdown on eight carries against the Dolphins and has had a strong camp.
That leaves one seat, and Eric Gray is also in the room after turning a team-high 16 touches into 70 scrimmage yards in Miami.
There was one more signal before the Miami game. The Giants put Tracy on the kickoff team. Dan Duggan of The Athletic noted that the Giants’ top backs had not been used on special teams during the preseason, which makes the assignment worth paying attention to.
Tracy began last season as the featured back before Skattebo took the job. Friday night against the Jets is his last chance to make the decision harder, and cutdown to 53 is Aug. 30.
