Paul Perkins ready for competition despite being named Giants’ starting running back
New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo made a not-so-surprise announcement that Paul Perkins is the team’s starting running back.
“(Perkins is) going to be our starter out there on first and second down,” McAdoo said in an interview with WFAN. “And we’ve added some competition in the room in a variety of ways with Shaun Draughn, Shane Vereen is coming back (from a season-ending injury), we drafted Wayne Gallman. So, it’s going to be interesting to see how the running back room shakes out.”
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The Giants only managed 88.3 rushing yards per game in 2016. Rashad Jennings took a majority of the snaps but regressed. Perkins averaged more than four yards a carry and put up the Giants’ only 100-yard rushing day in the regular season (the finale against the Washington Redskins).
Perkins was on the inside track to be the Giants’ starter. This was made even more evident when Jennings was released nearly three months ago.
Perkins insists he’s not content with resting on his laurels, mostly because he knows OTAs are more than a month away with training camp not set to begin until late July.
“Right now, for me, it doesn’t really mean too much,” he said in an interview on Giants.com. “It’s kind of a title because we have so much of the offseason left, and obviously, guys are going to be competing all the way through the end of the season. So right now, I’ll just take it for what it is, but I’m not losing sight of the competition.”
Perkins was a 2016 fifth-round selection. He knows not to overlook the running back the Giants selected in this year’s fourth round.
“I was actually kind of a fan of his,” Perkins said. “I went to the (College Football Playoff) National Championship when they (Clemson) played ‘Bama. That’s where I recognized him, where I saw him, and this past year I watched him and was like, ‘He’s a really good player.’ And I was a fan of his for a while, so I’m excited to see and get him up here.”
Perkins says that being the named starter will not change how he prepares each week.
“It doesn’t affect my mindset or my training habits at all,” he said. “With Rashad here or Rashad gone, I am going to prepare and train like a starter. That is what I always say, so I thank Rashad for laying down a template for us to emulate.”
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