sportsfanatic

Even though the New York Giants lost today, there was a sweet victory of sorts. Today, Derrick Ward surpassed the 1000 rushing yard mark to end the regular season with 1,025 rushing yards. His running mate, Brandon Jacobs, has also surpassed the 1000 yard mark this season as well. Jacobs has 1,089 of his own hard earned yards on the ground this season. As a team, the Giants have 2,383 rushing yards. They also hold a team average of 5 yards a carry.

Derrick’s yards today came against one of the best run defenses in the league, the Minnesota Vikings. As impressive as he was today, I think last week pretty much sealed the deal when he eclipsed over 200 rushing yards in that game. As Derrick is the number 2 back and most of his yards are earned in the third down situation, he has stepped up big when given the opportunity. I think that a lot of people thought that the team would be hurt when Jacobs went down, but Ward has quieted most of them.

When you couple in the 406 yards that these two earned in pass receptions along with the 2,114 on the ground, and they have accounted for 2,520 yards of the Giants offense. Considering that the Giants have a total of 5,507 total yards, that is pretty impressive. If you throw in the third running back, Ahmad Bradshaw, they account for more than half of the offensive production in yards.

The history was made when Ward surpassed the 1,000 mark. He, along with Brandon, became just the 4th tandem to achieve 1,000 yards each in a single season. They join the likes of  Miami’s Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris who were the first tandem to ever accomplish the feat. They managed it in 1972. Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier of the Pittsburgh Steelers did it in 1976. The final running back tandem to do it was Earnest Byner and Kevin Mack of the 1985 Cleveland Browns.

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