Great call? Dayne back in picture for Giants again

NEW YORK -- The New York Giants vow to improve their short-yardage running game this year, but you didn't see signs of progress in their first preseason game. What you did see was running back Ron Dayne showing signs that he could be a factor -- and an important one -- in an offense that played without him a year ago.

Dayne is the former Heisman Trophy winner who has been less than sensational since the Giants made him their first-round draft pick in 2000 and who was so far out of the loop a year ago he didn't suit up for one game. But that's about to change, and last Friday's performance against Kansas City was the first step.

After failing to suit up in 2003, Ron Dayne is back in the Giants' plans.(Getty Images)

I take you back to January when Tom Coughlin took over as coach. At the news conference announcing his hiring, Coughlin singled out two players as keys to the club: One was defensive tackle William Joseph, last year's No. 1 draft choice; the other was Dayne.

General manager Ernie Accorsi, who drafted Dayne, had compiled a collection of every game Dayne played with the Giants and handed them to Coughlin. He wanted to know what he thought of Dayne. After several days of study, Coughlin returned with an evaluation.

"When he got back to me he said, 'Why hasn't this guy played? '" said Accorsi. "And I said, 'I rest my case.'"

Dayne played and played a lot in the Giants' preseason opener, and he demonstrated rare speed on a 67-yard touchdown and a remarkable ability to slip tackles on a 29-yard score on which he emerged from a pile at the line of scrimmage. That was good. What wasn't good was that he couldn't gain 2 yards when the Giants needed them, failing on third-and-2 and fourth-and-1 on the Giants' opening series of the second half.

Sound familiar? A year ago the Giants were among the league's worst in short-yardage situations and dead last in "red-zone" offense, and while nobody knows if Dayne would have had an impact on those numbers, the Giants are willing to give him the chance now.

"If you look back," said Accorsi, "he's had a lot of long runs, and that's fine. But for me that's the dessert. The meat and potatoes is the short yardage he has to get. A year ago, if it was third-and-a-foot we couldn't get a first down, and that must change. That whole mental approach of toughness and power football is what (Coughlin) wants."

It's what Dayne wants, too, and it's what he represented when he was the Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Wisconsin. Brad Childress, now the offensive coordinator with Philadelphia, coached him there and never understood why the Giants used -- or didn't use -- Dayne as they did. At Wisconsin, Childress pointed out, Dayne was most effective when he had more than 20 carries, but the Giants rarely gave the guy the ball 20 times in any game.

If you're patient with Dayne, Childress said, you get results, and last week's game offered proof. Aside from his touchdown scores and one 14-yard dash, Dayne had runs of 1, 2, 2, 2, -1, 1, 1 and no yards. Yet the Giants stuck with him, giving Dayne the ball 11 times in six series, and their faith paid off.

"We always felt when he got lathered up and got rolling, it would take its toll on linebackers and the secondary -- the guy who had to stick a knife in a 250-pound back," said Childress. "There's a physical aspect, which I know Tom is preaching, but when you're that big as a running back you're a little better later on in a game than maybe you are in the beginning."