Fumbles, drops marred otherwise excellent rookie season for Tracy
After fumbling five times in 230 touches — once every 46 touches — and dropping five passes (9.4%) of his targets in 2024, New York Giants running back Tyrone Tracy knows that he needs to be better handling the football in 2025.
“Obviously ball security was a huge thing for me last year. I had too many on the ground, so that was a big thing for me,” Tracy said on Thursday as the Giants continued their OTAs.
Tracy has been making a conscious effort to improve his grip on the ball.
“It starts on the football field. Every time I’m holding the ball, or I get the ball, whatever it is, making sure I’m carrying it the right way,” Tracy said. “And then I also bought, I don’t know if y’all know what it is, but it’s a little grip strengthener off Amazon that I use every night. It just helps me. Also, it just makes sure that I’m being fundamentally sound when I’m holding the ball as well. So again, just take your coaching and the meeting room to the field.”
Tracy led the Giants with 839 rushing yards as a rookie and had 1,123 total yards from scrimmage, making it an overall successful year for the 2024 fifth-round pick. He is hoping to build on what he did a year ago.
“I think consistency is the best thing that shows up in the NFL,” he said. “When you look at all of the great running backs, they’re very consistent year after year after year. So that’s what I want to be. I want to be one of the great New York Giants running backs that’s come through here, but it starts with consistency, and that’s going to start at practice every day.”
Tracy will be joined in the Giants’ backfield this year by fourth-round pick Cam Skattebo, a player with an aggressive, hard-charging style who used to run into telephone poles for fun as a child.
“I’ve got my speed and elusiveness, but Skattebo, he’s got a little bit of everything,” Tracy said. “I watched his film, obviously, I’ve seen him play. I think we’ve all seen him play. That boy has got some power to him. I think that’s one of his strengths – is his strength, really. His power, the way he runs the ball. He runs angry, he runs hard, he runs physical, some of the things that Dabs loves. But again, I think that we’re two different backs, but I think we complement each other really well.”
A taste of Russ
The Giants have a new quarterback this year in Russell Wilson, entering his 14th NFL season. During a recent dinner with a number of players that Wilson paid for, the veteran QB introduced the young running back to a new world of food.
“I‘m not a big ‘splurger,’ but he definitely hooked us up to say the least. He hooked us up. I saw some food on my plate that I (had) never seen before, but it was really, really good food … it was very exotic food, but it was really good.
“A lot of y’all have probably already had it, but it’s called calamari, I think – octopus, nah, nah, nah. Yeah, some octopus. They also had some, I don’t even know what it’s called, but it was some slimy stuff. I was like, ‘Yeah, I can’t do (any) of that.’ It wasn’t an octopus; it was like clams and oysters. And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m good. I’m good (on) that. I’m going to just keep my little fries.’”
As far as Wilson the quarterback, Tracy is a fan of the signing.
“I was a Russ fan [growing up]. I didn’t obviously know him personally up until now, but I’ve seen him play. I’ve seen his style of play. I knew it would mesh well,” Tracy said. “He’s a great leader. He speaks up, he does what is needed all of the time, and he does more. He’s the first one here, last one out. He’s a great human being other than just a football player. For our football team, he comes out here like the rest of us, he’s working hard like the rest of us.
“He knows what he wants. He knows how he wants it. He’s done this for a long time, so he knows the looks. He knows what’s going to happen before it happens. He’ll literally tell me, ‘Get out quick here.’ Because he knows that I’m going to be open on this play just from a defensive standpoint. But also, he can run. That’s a huge thing. Obviously, we had past quarterbacks that can run, but that’s a plus. When you talk about a person who could throw the ball accurately and then also run really well, that’s going to help out us tremendously. But then you’ve got good receivers, good tight ends, good o-line. When we have the whole package, it makes everything pretty easy.”