Tyrone Tracy Jr.’s path to the Giants started only a few weeks after he was born.
That’s when Joel Thomas was hired as a graduate assistant for Purdue, working alongside fellow young coach Lamar Conrad in 2000.
Nearly a quarter-century later, Tracy’s running backs coach at Purdue last season was Conrad and his running backs coach with the Giants this season is Thomas.
“There’s always a special torch when you are talking of places you’ve been and you’ve had a great experience, so it starts there,” Thomas said. “I had good intel as far as the makeup of the person — are they willing to stick their face in the fire in [pass] protection? — and information that was credible.”
The Giants drafted the rookie Tracy in the fifth round.
He beat out second-year pro Eric Gray to be the primary backup in training camp and has overtaken veteran Devin Singletary (three-year, $16.5 million contract) to be the lead back after two 100-yard games in his first four career starts.
“I come from a background where the runner has to have three-down value,” Thomas said.
Tracy, 24, is only in his second year as a running back, after playing receiver through the first five years of his college career (four at Iowa).
The Giants became intrigued after he put on an athletic showcase at the NFL Combine.
“The one trait you don’t hear a lot about is intelligence,” Thomas said. “He’s a smart football player. He’s grasped onto the things we’re asking him to do and develop.”
Tracy was unavailable to the media this week while in the NFL-mandated concussion protocol.
He was cleared to play Sunday against the Commanders by an independent neurologist after Friday’s practice.
“He’s made plays when they aren’t blocked,” head coach Brian Daboll said. “That’s what good running backs need to do, too. Where it’s not perfectly blocked and he can squirt through — even if it’s two or three [yards]. But I think some of his power and explosiveness has shown up running through tacklers or making a guy miss in space. He’s earned his playing time.”
Teammates might say Tracy is playing like a dawg. Thomas actually referenced some famous dogs — those trained to create conditioned stimuli by psychologist Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s.
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“Anytime you get reps, you learn a picture of how something happened,” Thomas said. “It’s like Pavlov: All of a sudden you hear something, you see something, you recognize and then you react.
“This last game, the style he played with is the style we’re trying to burn in their brain as far as get downhill, be physical, be definitive in cuts instead of dancing around the hole.”
Tracy is averaging 5.2 yards per carry with two touchdowns.
Only Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels (424) and Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving (395) have more than Tracy’s 376 yards among rookies.
“I knew once we got in that wheelhouse there that he was going to be in play,” Thomas said reflecting on draft day. “I actually had him [graded] a little higher than where we got him, so we got value.”