COMMENTARY : Meggett Consistently Demonstrates Worth

There would have been no Giants season to save without Dave Meggett, who sometimes can do everything in football except get into the game. When the Giants started out with a record of 3-0, he was one of the best players in the league. He scored touchdowns and threw touchdown passes and even recovered a fumble in the first quarter of the season, against the Eagles. When the Giants needed him to make fourth-quarter plays last Sunday against the Eagles, Meggett scored a touchdown running and nearly scored another on a pass from Dave Brown. Saturday he will try to get the Giants into the playoffs, in what might be his last game at Giants Stadium.

“Chances are I’m gone,” Meggett said.

He is 28 years old and one of the most versatile and useful backs in the NFL and a free agent after this season. Meggett saw what happened last year when other Giants free agents came to the end of their contracts. General manager George Young did not exactly throw money around and beg anybody to stay, and that included Phil Simms. When this season is over, Young and coach Dan Reeves will have to make a decision about Meggett. He gets the ball in his hands only a dozen times a game, returning kicks and catching passes and taking a few handoffs. It does not stop him from being one of the most talented football players the Giants have ever had. The Giants will have to decide if a utility man, even a champion utility man, is worth a lot more than the $1.1 million a year he is making already.

Meggett is first in the NFC in punt returns this season. He has gained 284 yards rushing and caught 30 passes and scored six touchdowns. He has even thrown a touchdown pass against the Redskins. Maybe Michael Brooks, a linebacker, is the MVP on this Giants team. Maybe it is Chris Calloway, who made big plays of his own. I will go for Meggett, because the Giants would not be anywhere near a game like Saturday’s without him.

If it is his last game with the Giants, it would only be right that he make more third-down plays and leave with style. He has always played bigger than his size (5-7) and bigger than his numbers.

“When I say I’m gone, I’m just going by what I saw last year,” Meggett said. “I didn’t see the Giants doing very much to keep our free agents, and that’s why you saw a lot of guys who were important to this team leave. That’s why I think the chances are that I’m gone. Unless they didn’t like the hits they took last winter for letting all those guys get away, in which case, they might decide they want me to stay around, make a few more plays for them.”

He made enough this season. In the opener against the Eagles, Meggett’s fumble recovery set up one touchdown. Then he returned a punt 68 yards for a touchdown, which meant he handed Dave Brown a 14-0 lead. Later in the second half, Meggett ran 26 yards from scrimmage for another touchdown. When Rodney Hampton got hurt against the Cardinals the next week, Meggett gained 36 yards on the Giants’ last drive and ran out the clock and the Giants won again. The next week, he started in Hampton’s place against the Redskins and seemed to do everything. That was the game in which he threw his touchdown pass. The Giants were 3-0.

Then Dan Reeves forgot about him, which is never very smart, while the Giants tried to fall out of the season. But last Sunday, Meggett was right there at the end to tie the score with his touchdown run, then close the Eagles out by running 26 yards after Brown found him all alone on the left side of the field. Meggett always made the most of his chances. In his one Super Bowl appearance, Meggett gave the Giants 129 all-purpose yards, 48 of them from halfback. As usual, they all seemed important.

“People always talk about me as a role player,” Meggett said. “They say there’s not enough ball to go around, meaning there’s not enough carries for me if Rodney gets his. I just want to hear my number called. If they call my number, I will make the plays. Even when I fumbled against the Eagles in the last game (on the Eagles’ 13-yard line), I think it’s because nothing had been happening for us. I was trying too hard to make something happen.”

He was there in the fourth quarter, of course. Brown handed Meggett the ball near the goal line and the Eagles seemed to have him stopped. But it is hard to stop Meggett. Greg Jackson, one of the free agents who left the Giants last winter, was underneath him. Meggett rolled over Jackson and got the touchdown. On the Giants’ last drive, he made a block and slipped out into the left flat, and waited for Brown to find him. Then waited for what felt like an hour for the pass Brown floated to get to him.

“I’m thinking a thousand things while that ball is in the air,” Meggett said. “I’m thinking about getting redemption for fumbling in the first half. And I’m thinking that if the damn ball would get to me, I’d score another touchdown, because there was no one near me. You have to understand something: I very seldom touch the field. When I do touch the field, I want to score, always.” Meggett didn’t score. He got the Giants close enough, before Brad Daluiso won the game with a field goal.

Brown has had his moments lately on offense. So has Mike Sherrard. Meggett still has more big plays than anyone. Even in the losing streak, he tried to bring the Giants back against the Lions with a 56-yard punt return that was one of the most splendid, broken-field runs ever made at Giants Stadium. Of all the people in the stadium that day, perhaps only Barry Sanders fully appreciated Meggett’s work.

Now Meggett’s feet hurt as he comes to the end of his sixth Giants season. Bone spurs caused him to miss (Dec. 21st’s) practice and it was suggested he might need surgery after the season. He will play Saturday, of course. Meggett is one of the handful of Super Bowl champions the Giants have left. He will take any kind of big game, especially after being 3-7.

When you ask him if he wants to stay with the Giants, he says yes. It does not mean he will not listen to other bidders. It is a good bet that Bill Parcells will come after him. So will Bill Belichick. Maybe they will push Meggett’s price up and give George Young a reason to say the price is prohibitive. It would be a mistake to let him. Young is trying to build one more Super Bowl champion before he retires. If that is the object of the game, he cannot let someone like Meggett leave. Because it is clear Meggett has not lost anything.

“It’s just a matter of me touching the field,” he said.

He played two years for Parcells, two for Ray Handley, now two with Dan Reeves. None of them let him touch the field enough. Somehow they all found a way to call his number when they needed a first down. Then Meggett has been one of the Giants who will be remembered. Now he gets one more big game. He deserves this kind of game as much as any of them, even if it is his last.