New York Giants Running Game -- One of Their Worst Efforts Ever

 By John Turney 

Devin Singletary ran for 24 yards on 14 carries against the Cowboys tonight

Tonight in the Thursday Night Game featuring the Dallas Cowboys at the New York Giants, Gotham's team wanted to establish the run. But they didn't. Or couldn't.

How bad was it?

They ran for 26 yards on 24 rushes -- an average of 1.1 yards a carry.

One. Point. One.

It's tied for the tenth-worst ever per Pro Football Reference (PFR)—

But what makes it worse is that many of the games listed by PFR are when yards lost attempting to pass were lumped in with rushing yards the separated of which was made permanent post-1952. 

Though a little complex, it's fair to say pre-1952 at least some of the negative rushing players were what would be called sacks today.

So, you can throw out #2 on the list, #4, #6, #7, #8 and two of the games tied at #10.

A post-1952 chart would look like this—

Eliminating the earlier games that were scored differently tonight's performance was the fourth-worst ever.

One. Point. One.

Now, let's look at the other side of the coin. 

Over the decades the Cowboys have had some great defenses that prided themselves on stopping the run. Going into the game the Pokes ranked last in the NFL versus the run and last in yards allowed per carry.

However last night's performance took the Dallas defense from allowing an average of 185.7 yards a game down to 145.8 yards and from 5.4 yards an attempt to 4.6 --they will still rank pretty low but will no longer be last.

But there is more. 

Tonight was the top performance ever for a Dallas defense in terms of stopping the run. The Giants' 1.1 yards an attempt is lower than the previous record of the 1.2 yards the Chargers averaged in 1983. 

Here are the top ten performances in Cowboys history for games an opponent ran the ball 20 or more times.

The Giants were awful running the ball. The Cowboys have never had a better night stopping the run.

History. It's always interesting.