Interview: Former New York Giants RB Brandon Jacobs Covers Super Bowl Wins and Signing in the Hobby
There is a term used in football circles – “first off the bus.” The idea is for a head coach to intimidate the opposition by letting one of his most physically imposing players be the first person off the team bus, sending a clear message of an upcoming four quarter beatdown. From his early days at Assumption High School in Napoleonville, Louisiana, to his college playing days at Coffeyville Community College, with the Auburn Tigers and Southern Illinois Salukis, and in the NFL with the New York Giants, Brandon Jacobs is the definition of first off the bus.
At 6-4, 264 pounds, with a 10.82 posted in the 100 meters, Jacobs was a punishing tailback that helped bring two Super Bowl titles to the Big Apple.
The Career at a Glance
Jacobs was a USA Today All-America selection in 2000 after running for over 3,000 yards with 38 touchdowns scored as a senior. His freshman year in Kansas with Coffeyville was much the same, 1,349 yards and 17 touchdowns. As a sophomore, Jacobs pounded the rock for 1,896 yards and 20 TDs, earning JUCO All-American honors.
As a junior with the Auburn Tigers, Jacobs was part of what is arguably one of if not the greatest collegiate backfields of all time: Carnell “Cadillac” Williams, Ronnie Brown, and Jacobs. To better showcase his talents for NFL scouts, Jacobs played his senior season with the Salukis, rushing for 992 yards and 19 scores off 150 totes.
In 2005, the NFL came a calling. Selected in the fourth round by the New York Giants, Jacobs received his chance to impact the league. Learning the system behind 10,000-yard rusher Tiki Barber, by 2007, the Giants’ backfield belonged to Jacobs. Through 11 games, Jacobs produced 1,009 yards with 4 scores. The following season, Jacobs, again, posted a 1,000-yard rushing season, carrying the pigskin 219 times for 1,089 yards with a mind-blowing 15 rushing scores.
Through his eight seasons with the Giants and for his career, Jacobs averaged an amazing 4.5 yards per carry.
Where Jacobs’ name is etched in history, winner of two Super Bowls.
Perhaps not welcomed in Beantown, Jacobs is still loved in New York City. In Super Bowl XLII (2008), the Giants handed the undefeated New England Patriots a 17-14 defeat. Four years later, the Tom Coughlin-led Giants did it again, taking down the Bill Belichick-coached Patriots 21-17.
At card shows, card shops, and on secondary sales platforms, Jacobs’ 2005 SP Authentic #205 AU RC /850 still draws the greenbacks.
On the anniversary of the Giants’ Feb. 3, 2008, Super Bowl victory over the Patriots, Jacobs answered questions about his playing career, Super Bowl moments, and interacting with fans at card shows.
Beckett Interview
Brandon, the NFL has not seen many gifted tailbacks like you who are big, tall, powerful, and fast. In an era when defenses were tilted against the run instead of the pass, how did teams try to scheme against you?
“Good question. When we came into game week, we’d watch their tendencies on defense. We’d watch to see how they did against a team three or four weeks prior, if it was that many weeks into the season. We’d watch how they tried to stop the run, how they put certain sets out.
“First, you have to learn the tendencies of the team and then see what they did. Then you have to combat their strengths. If I am watching that team, and they went against a big running back or that team ran a lot, and they always run to the strongside and their strongside is either on the line of scrimmage with a tight end or lined up off the ball with an H-back, same position and the same scheme, I’d watch how they line up against that certain look.
“Then we’d go back to what we do and what our team forte is to see what they will try to do to stop us, which is a different situation because the team two weeks ago was running with a back that is 5-8 or 5-9, 200-210 pounds. You don’t necessarily know how they will come out to stop the run against us.
“Typically, teams would blitz to the strength side against us. They’d hope they’d get people through the line of scrimmage to get people to my feet to slow me down to make it easier to tackle me.”
By the averages, teams were unsuccessful at stopping you, you had a 4.5 yard per carry average for your career. What made you so successful on the field running the pigskin?
“Well, you know, I had a great group and a great coaching staff that put us in the right position. The team was astronomical from my quarterback to my offensive linemen, my receivers – everyone was doing their part. It was a collective effort by the team. We were a run-first team, and we had great wide receivers on the outside making plays. It was a total team effort.
“We had Plaxico Burress and Amani Toomer on the outside. Both of those guys were great. I think Tooms is about 6-3 and was a great route runner. He made big-time catches for us. And we had Plaxico Burress on the outside at 6-5 with good speed. He looked like a gazelle running down the field, jumping and making plays in double coverage.
“You had guys like that, that they (defense) had to account for. You had to be really, really careful in what you do because you are not going to cover a guy like Plaxico Burress with one man. He’s tall, he’s fast, he’s athletic, and he can make plays. He can post you up and make a play with his body. Nine times out of 10, there was a safety going deep on him, we’d use that with my offensive line, having six or seven guys, six guys in most cases, that we’d have to block to clean up; it made my job easier.”
I’m catching you on the anniversary of your first Super Bowl win, the 17-14 victory over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII (42). What are your memories of that game?
“My memories go back to even before the game, looking, seeing a team that had not been beat before, and knowing we played them the closest throughout that whole season. That was Week 17, we had them beat. We let it slip away. We gave up a couple of big plays to Randy Moss, big plays late in the game. We just couldn’t come back to win. We ran out of time. I think we lost 38-35, if I am not mistaken. We were in position to beat them.
“Coming the second time around for the Super Bowl, we knew for a fact that we were going to beat them because we knew what we did in the first game and we were going to do it again just with less penalties. We were going to hit them in the mouth and keep hitting them.
“They were a very finesse football team. There wasn’t anything too physical about them up front. That whole team, they were just finesse. They liked to slant on defense to try to confuse you up front and blitz away from the slants, and stuff like that. We knew our responsibilities were not going to be hard, we just had to get it done with no penalties or turnovers.
“Coming into that game, I was like, ‘Man, this is going to be one we win – we are going to win this game. We got to beat these guys. We should’ve beat them the first time.’
“What I remember about the game, there wasn’t much to remember but prior to the game it was thinking about when we win and what will take place in New York when we win. It was all about when we win, when we win, when we win. And then it happened.
“During the game, my memory is about having the opportunity to convert a fourth-and-1 to keep the drive alive with a minute something left on the clock to win the game.
Four years later, the Giants got the Pats again, this time 21-17 in Super Bowl XLVI (46). What are your memories of that amazing game?
“We beat them during the season in Foxborough (24-20). We beat them when we were down four or five starters out for that game, if I remember correctly. We took it to them pretty good in Foxborough. We beat them up along the line of scrimmage, and we ran the ball really well against them.
“We didn’t stick to the run as much as we should have, but we ran the ball pretty well. We had some penalties, but at the end of the day we kept our foot on the gas and kept going.
“Again, they were the same Patriots team with a little less talent. I think Richard Seymour was gone by that time; I think he had retired. They were down (Tedy) Bruschi, and I don’t think (Mike) Vrabel was there. I think he had retired – I can’t remember, but they were down some guys from that first Super Bowl.
“We took it to them again. We beat them in Foxborough and did the same thing in the Super Bowl. Being more physical, our defensive line dominated that game the second time around. They got free and got some hits on (Tom) Brady. Our DBs had it easy, we had four or five defensive linemen on any given down that could beat the man in front of them. Watching them dominate that game was a beautiful thing.”
As fans, understandably, we do not know how difficult it is to even make it to the Super Bowl much less win it all. On the verge of Super Bowl 60, for the fans of the Patriots and Seahawks, what have the guys on the team gone through to get to this point?
“First coming into the offseason, they start in March. Guys have weight that they have to report at. They can’t just show up weighing and looking any type of way. They have body fat percentages and things like that; they are beating up their bodies for July when they have to show up.
“In March, guys are trying to go live life and they are trying to have fun but they are still working out. They still have to report to OTAs, but they are doing extra stuff. They are enjoying life and spending time with their families, but while keeping a close watch on weight, working out, and stuff like that.
“It is a year-round job. They go through a lot physically and mentally. More so mentally than anything else because you have to prepare for the season. You also have to prepare to be on a team. They are constantly gunning for you because there is always a guy cheaper than you that can do what you do. The mental part is the hard part to me. The physical part is pretty easy. At training camps, they don’t really bang as much anymore now like they did. You’ll be lucky to hear the helmets hit and shoulder pads clap now. Physically, it has gotten a bit easier to prepare for.”
In the hobby, card manufacturers jumped at the opportunity to produce your rookie cards. Not counting parallels and inserts, you have 38 RCs in the wild. When you saw your first RC, do you remember which one you saw and that feeling of knowing you’ve been immortalized in the footsteps of the greats like Walter Payton, Gale Sayers, and Jim Brown?
“When I saw my first rookie card, I was like, ‘Whoa, this is me.’ I collected cards when I was younger. I would go to the store and get Topps. You had a few cards in there, but you never knew who would be in the packs. At the time, when I was doing it, I wanted a Ricky Watters card so bad, but I never got one.
“It was fun to see my own. I was like, ‘Wow, there will be some kid out there wanting a Jacobs card, and he will have an opportunity to get that.’ I was really happy seeing me on the card. It made me feel good.
“Guys like Watters and Rodney Hampton, they were some of my favorite guys to watch. I always wanted a Ricky Watters card.”
Do you have any of your own cards? If so, which ones?
“I have a bunch of my cards. I probably have every card that was made of me. I have them all. My rookie card is probably my favorite one. I have all of my cards. They made sure I got copies; I have a box full of cards of myself upstairs.”
A popular thing to do now is swap jerseys with players on other teams that maybe you played with in college. Did you swap any jerseys with guys from Southern Illinois or Auburn during your playing days?
“No, we were not swapping jerseys like that when I played. But a guy I would have wanted to swap with was Adrian Peterson. I would have wanted to swap with him; he was a dog, a beast. I would have wanted to swap with Frank Gore. I didn’t get to swap jerseys with anybody.”
Have you collected any memorabilia from the players before you or in other sports?
“Yeah, I have jerseys from most of my teammates. I got a game-worn jersey from Tramon Williams (DB). I played high school with him. Tramon Williams played for the Green Bay Packers. I think he played for Green Bay for like 14 years, I think he started 11 of those 14 – maybe. That’s probably the only game jersey outside of my teammates that I have.
“But I have Jeff Green Celtics’ jersey and an Eddie Griffin Knicks’ jersey – I have a couple of different things from other people in other sports.”
Which fan events have you done in the past?
“I did a card show in (Las) Vegas once. They flew me out there, and I signed autographs for two days. I did another card show in Miami and one in New York. Outside of that, it was autograph signings at malls and restaurants, things like that. Signing memorabilia that they would pay like $40 to get a picture and get stuff signed. I would take pictures and sign stuff; I did those a lot when I played.”
Which items do fans have you sign most often?
“Most of the time it is custom photos people are making. There is a guy that hands out pictures, he’s doing all this cool stuff with them. People come up to me to sign them, I’m like, ‘Where did you get this?’
“They put two pictures together and make it look like one picture, it is cool. Mostly it is 8x10s. I sign some cards, not a lot. A lot of 8x10s and a lot of old jerseys that people bought when I was a rookie. They are ready to stop wearing it, so they bring it to the signing, and I get a chance to retire it by putting my signature on it. I like that. I do. That is probably one of my best things to sign – a really old beat down worn jersey with my name and number on it that people were loyal to throughout the years and they are ready to retire it.
“I feel honored to put my signature on it and retire it for them. That is my favorite thing to sign.”
Because you were part of a dynamic running back group at Auburn, earned All-American honors with the Salukis, and were part of two Super Bowl winning Giants teams, which stories of your career do fans recount to you most often?
“When I played against Redskins, I ran over one of their DBs (LaRon Landry); they are like, ‘Oh my God, you killed and destroyed him. He’s not been the same since.’ I love hearing those stories. It is just me doing my job and doing what I was supposed to do. I appreciate the fandom and how much people love this stuff.
“Another time, I think it was in 2006, where I was the first one to get flagged for a celebration and fined for it. Now people are doing it to represent their lives. My wife was pregnant with my oldest son, who is at Clemson now, I put the ball under my jersey for her to represent her in her pregnancy and our son. I got penalized and fined for it at the time. Now guys are doing it and don’t get anything. I love hearing about that one.”
What events do you have coming up?
“I have a poker tournament in March, I will sign autographs in Vegas, but that is not a card show. They are bringing me out there to be part of the event.”
Jacobs NFL Career Totals
Jacobs played nine years in the NFL for the Giants and San Fransico 49ers. For his career, he rushed the rock 1,141 times for 5,094 yards with 60 TDs scored and caught 82 passes for 743 yards with 4 more scores through 109 games.
After a one-year stint with the 49ers in 2012, Jacobs retired at the end of the 2013 season after one more year with the Giants.
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