Giants' Eli Penny hoping to get more 'recognition' this season

Just about every headline and highlight emerging from the Giants’ practice on Thursday had to do with the handful of snaps taken by Saquon Barkley. Hardly anyone seemed to even notice that while Barkley was on the side recovering from his grueling eight reps it was Eli Penny who caught a touchdown to cap one of the offensive series.

"Fullbacks," Penny said while grinning and sighing. "We don’t really get a lot of recognition."

The Giants may be on the verge of sidestepping that anonymity. While Penny has been handling his duties as the lead blocker throughout most of this summer’s training camp, he’s also gotten his share of plays with the football in his hands. In the two preseason games so far he has taken four handoffs (three carries for 18 yards and one for nine that was negated by a penalty) and caught a pass for seven. In Sunday’s preseason finale he could get a chance to increase those stats.

They aren’t just courtesy touches to reward him for all the dirty work he does. The Giants actually see Penny as a fullback who can add to their tailback depth.

"Considering Saquon and when he would or wouldn’t be healthy – we weren’t really too sure at that point (in the offseason) – we started just talking through the options at running back," Joe Judge said this week. "Obviously, there are some guys off the roster that we brought in, there’s a guy that we drafted, but then sometimes the answer could be on your roster already . . . Eli is a guy we wanted to go ahead and use as a runner for us. There are going to be opportunities for him to play as that back, not just by different personnel groups or different situations."

The Giants have flirted with that idea for as long as Penny has been with them, beginning in 2018. When Barkley was sidelined by an ankle sprain in 2019 and then with a torn ACL in 2020, there was talk about how Penny could step in and take on some of the load at running back. He’d look good in practices, but come gametime he was rarely deployed in that way.

He has 59 carries in his NFL career. More than half of them came (31) in his rookie year with the Cardinals in 2018. With the Giants he’s had just 28 carries.

Asked why he had not gotten more opportunities in the past, Penny shrugged. "I don’t have the answer to that," he said. "In the times I’ve gotten to carry the ball here I’ve shown I can be productive with it."

That’s not a complaint. Far from it. Penny’s mental conversion to a fullback has taken a little while, but now seems to be complete. He even gave the fullback answer to the age-old question of his position when asked if he would rather score a touchdown himself or help someone else reach the end zone.

"The general population would say scoring a touchdown, but now that I’ve been doing this fullback stuff for a few years now, it feels real good when Saquon breaks a big run, or now with (Devontae) Booker and Corey (Coleman) and those guys," Penny said. "When you get a good block and spring those guys free, it feels just like a touchdown."

There are fans who appreciate that selfless task. Penny said he gets lots of love from them online, receiving messages that he is doing well and to "keep the position alive" in the pass-happy NFL where fullbacks are an endangered species. "That’s cool," he said.

He even gets some recognition beyond that realm. When the Giants played the Jets in the preseason opener at MetLife Stadium earlier this month, Penny said he looked in the stands at one point and saw a blue 39 jersey just like the one he wears.

"That was nice," he said.

They’ll never outnumber the 26s in the stands, but if he gets more carries and catches, maybe there will be a few more of those 39s sprinkled in by the end of the season.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.