With Saquon Barkley out of the picture, the Giants had a pre-draft running back rotation of Devin Singletary, 2023 fifth-round pick Eric Gray, and a bunch of “meh” after that. Which means that anyone coming in from the draft would have an opportunity beyond the preseason.
Enter Purdue running back Tyrone Tracy Jr., who at 5′ 11⅛” and 209 pounds, totaled 714 yards, eight touchdowns, 46 forced missed tackles, 14 carries of 15 or more yards, and 36 first downs on just 114 carries. That put Tracy with a yards per carry average of 6.3 — another arbiter of his big-play potential and ability to run with power. Tracy can also catch the ball. In fact, before he was a running back at Purdue, he was a receiver at Iowa, and he actually made big plays in that garbage fire of an offense. Not bad for a guy who was there with the 166th overall pick in the fifth round.
“He’s a former receiver. In terms of yards per carry, he’s been pretty good,” head coach Brian Daboll said of his newest running back. “He’s an athlete who has played receiver and then played running back and has some good production. We’ll throw him in the mix. Whether that’s in the kickoff return game or whether that’s at running back or the receiving part of it, we’ve got to do a good job of getting him in here and seeing where he’s at and then trying to fit him into the things that he can do well.”
New @Giants RB Tyrone Tracy Jr. should be highly-regarded simply because he was a productive receiver… at Iowa. Then, he switched positions at Purdue, and pulled off what may have been the NCAA's most ridiculous run in 2023. pic.twitter.com/0eoeBt4Y4L
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 2, 2024
