Cam Skattebo’s running style may be illegal at times, but he won’t change his ways. The Giants running back delivered a big play in New York’s 26-21 overtime win over the Houston Texans, but he sparked controversy early in the game.
In the first quarter, Skattebo was called for one of the surprising penalties of the week. The Giants running back was flagged for a rarely enforced unnecessary roughness, with the officiating crew ruling that he lowered his helmet to make contact.
The 15-yard penalty was surprising because officials don’t typically flag an offensive player for lowering their helmet. Heading into Week 7, they had thrown just four penalty flags all season for lowering their helmets, and only one of those was against an offensive player. The other player was Houston’s Foster Moreau, but he was flagged for making a tackle on a punt return in Week 2, making Skattebo the only player penalized while playing on offense.
On the one hand, Skattebo is bound to get punished at some point because he’s a battering ram who looks for contact with defensive players. Despite his running style, this is the first time in his career that he has been flagged for lowering his helmet, but it may not be his last.
Following the game, the Giants running back was asked if he could change his running style to avoid future penalties, and apparently, he had no plans to change anything.
“The NFL loves to post me when I do things like that but it also loves to take things away from me,” Skattebo said in his postgame comments. “I’m going to run the ball like I want to run the ball. If I keep getting flags for it or getting fined for it, guess I’ll be playing for free.”
In layman’s terms, Skattebo still plans to truck defenders every time he has the ball. The problem with this plan is that there’s a good chance Giants coach John Harbaugh won’t like it. Now that Skattebo has been penalized, the officials are likely watching him possibly put his head down on the forward, and if he is flagged, the Giants will gain 15 yards.
If Skattebo continues to get flagged for not wanting to change his ways, that will almost certainly anger Harbaugh, who doesn’t need a running back, since he’s already in the doghouse this year. He didn’t have a catch in Week 6, but he made up for it with a big play against the Texans, rushing. for 124 yards and a touchdown on just 17 carries.
If Skattebo doesn’t want to go back to Harbaugh’s doghouse, he’ll probably have to adjust his running style a bit so he doesn’t get flagged going forward.