Cam Skattebo is walking into the Giants’ season opener with the kind of role teams usually spend months easing a back into. Instead, he’s getting the first carry under the MetLife lights on Sunday night, and he’s making no secret about what he plans to do with it.
When Kay Adams asked him what that first touch against the Cowboys would feel like, Skattebo answered that it would be “punishment to the defense” (h/t Yahoo Sports). That fits the way the Giants are treating him, too. John Harbaugh has already asked whether Skattebo can handle 20-plus carries a game, and Skattebo said he is ready for that workload.
That’s a remarkable turn for a player whose rookie season ended on October 26 against Philadelphia with a dislocated right ankle, an open tibia fracture, and a ruptured deltoid ligament. The injury was serious enough that Skattebo said he thought about retirement during rehab. He came back anyway, and now he opens 2026 as the starter rather than as a rotational piece.
Before the injury, Skattebo had already become the most productive back on the roster. He ran for 410 yards and five touchdowns on 101 carries in eight games, and he added 24 catches for 207 yards and two more scores as a receiver, according to his PFF profile.
In his six full games, he averaged 16.0 carries a night. For a fourth-round pick, that was starter-level production before his ankle gave out.
The Giants still have a crowded backfield on paper. Harbaugh kept four running backs on the initial 53-man roster: Skattebo, Najee Harris, Tyrone Tracy Jr., and Devin Singletary.
Harris brings the biggest résumé in the room, with four straight 1,000-yard seasons for Pittsburgh from 2021 through 2024. He wasn’t brought in to be an afterthought.
And yet the Giants’ unofficial Week 1 depth chart, along with their own numbers-to-know preview, has Skattebo listed as the lead back.
There’s also the money angle, and the Giants know exactly what they’re getting there. Skattebo is on a four-year, $5.271 million rookie contract with a $1.1 million signing bonus as the No. 105 overall pick. If he gives them starter touches at rookie-contract prices, that’s the kind of roster math front offices love.
The setup matters even more because Matt Nagy is taking over the offense with Jaxson Dart starting at quarterback. A heavy dose of Skattebo gives the Giants a way to keep things controlled in a primetime opener.
His 16.0 carries per game during his healthy stretch already pointed in that direction, and a 20-plus-carry role would push it further. It would also let the Giants lean on the run and avoid putting Dart in a shootout with Dak Prescott on night one.
The only real question is durability. Skattebo clearly wants the volume.
He’s said it, and he’s said it with conviction. The issue is whether an ankle rebuilt from a fracture and a ruptured ligament can take the punishment he’s asking to dish out.
For now, the Giants are handing him the keys. Sunday night is his first chance to prove he can drive.
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