Jacobs to Cowboys: Yes, I am a bully

Rule No. 1 of trash-talking: It's probably not very effective if the target takes it as a compliment. Such is the case with the words Cowboys cornerback Mike Jenkins used to describe Brandon Jacobs on Wednesday, calling him "a bully."

Jacobs' response? Thank you very much!

"I am a bully," he proudly said Thursday. "I think people who call out bullies are afraid of bullies. If they call me a bully, that's how I see it. They're just sitting back waiting for us to go in there and we're going there ready to play football."

It's been a while since anyone has considered Jacobs a bully. He has struggled to be a physical runner in the last several seasons, losing some of the thunder he used to swing for back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons. But Sunday against the Packers, Jacobs ran with authority for the first time in a while. He showed flashes of that against the Patriots earlier this season, but against Green Bay, he had a season-high 59 yards on only eight carries. It was the first game this season in which he had more than one run of more than 10 yards. In fact, he had three of them, and he did so despite playing most of the game with a sore left hamstring.

A bully? The Giants would love to see Jacobs continue to play that way.

"That guy, when he wants to run the ball and he's using that 260-pound frame, it can be an intimidating force," Justin Tuck said. "It starts to wear on you mentally as a defensive player when you have a guy that big coming full steam ahead at you . . . I'm hoping that he understands how dominant of a back he can be when he wants to be."

The Cowboys certainly understand that. And Jacobs thinks he's already starting to win the psychological battle before the team even gets on the plane to fly to Dallas. "When they speak to something like that, I just look at it and I think my own things in my head on how they're getting ready to try to accept the challenge that we're bringing to them," he said. "And then go out and run like that."

"All we can do is take it as ammo," Ahmad Bradshaw said of the Cowboys' chatter.

Neither Jacobs nor Bradshaw (foot) practiced Thursday, but Tom Coughlin said both are expected to be on the field Friday. Both said they will be ready to play against the Cowboys.

Jacobs said he knows that the Giants have four key games left and that building on their new-found physical running attack will be key. "If you go in there and you bring it to them and you keep bringing it to them all game long, somebody is going to break," he said. "Either the person who is bringing it is going to get tired of bringing it or they're going to get tired of trying to stop the person who is bringing it so they're going to stop. It's whoever wants it bad enough."

The Cowboys had some other things to say about the Giants this week. One of them came from defensive end DeMarcus Ware, who lamented the Giants' two-game winning streak at Cowboys Stadium and said the Giants are coming to Dallas to "take [our] manhood."

Jacobs raised an eyebrow to that. "It sounds like they lost it," he said. "I don't know what to say about that. I never felt like I lost my manhood. I don't care if we lose 16 straight, I'm going to have my manhood . . . If he feels like he don't have it, I hope he doesn't get it this week."