Giants 2024 UFA Primer: RB Matt Breida

Matt Breida, Running Back

Height: 5-foot-10
Weight: 190 lbs.
Age: 28
NFL Exp.: 7 Years
College: Georgia Southern

For the second straight offseason, the New York Giants have lingering questions in the running back position as Saquon Barkley’s future with the franchise hangs in the balance of the free agent market. Should the front-runner elect to part ways after testing the field, they’ll need to reevaluate what they have left, starting with Matt Breida.

A former undrafted free agent out of Georgia Southern, Breida signed a one-year deal with the Giants in March 2022 to serve as the experienced backup rusher to Barkley. Before that, he spent stints with San Francisco, who signed him as an undrafted player, from 2017-2020, Miami and Buffalo, the last two teams having him for one season each.

Breida was a three-year starter and two-time First-team All-Sun Belt honoree with Georgia Southern from 2013-16. The Brandon, Florida native carried the pigskin 542 times in his 37 games for the Eagles, a workload spanning 3,470 rushing yards (6.9 average) and 37 touchdowns that finished as the sixth-best campaign in school history.

In his junior season, Breida hit career-high markers with 203 carries for 1,609 yards and 17 touchdowns to lead the entire Sun Belt conference. His numbers decreased during his senior campaign, but his 8.7 and 7.9 average yards per carry during his tenure remain the two best annual averages in Georgia Southern’s record books.

Starting his professional career in the Bay Area, Breida played the backup role to Carlos Hyde in 2017 and appeared in 43 games with over 1,900 rushing yards (4.9 average) and six touchdowns. The production improved significantly in his second and third years with the 49ers when he notched two consecutive stat lines of at least 623 rushing yards and an average carry of 5.1 yards. He added 381 yards and three touchdowns through the air.

Breida was traded to the Dolphins for a fifth-round pick during the 2020 draft but only saw 12 games and 348 yards of total offense amid stints on the injured reserve list. Yet, the situation did not change in Buffalo the following season, with Breida getting buried in the depth chart and mustering a career-low 125 yards and one touchdown in nine contests.

Year one with the Giants saw the 28-year-old garner 54 carries for 220 yards and one touchdown, with another 20 catches for 118 receiving yards in 17 games. Breida resigned to a second one-year contract last March to resume his role as the second running back on the depth chart, but his season may not have fared as well as expected.

2023 Recap

Breida dressed up for all 17 of the Giants’ regular season games, but his total production did not reach a new level of abundance.

Despite earning one more carry than he did in 2022, Breida finished this fall with a mere 151 rushing yards (2.7 average) and one touchdown, the second-lowest total yardage of his career and lowest average carry in the same span. The passing numbers were no richer, with the running back catching just 17 targets for 88 yards and a 5.2 average haul.

Throwing those numbers into his resume, Breida now holds 98 games played with 575 carries for 2,652 yards (4.6 average) and nine touchdowns. His receiving stats sit at 120 receptions for 935 yards and six touchdowns, but he has failed to score one in that way over the past two seasons.

While he was the No. 2 ball carrier on the roster, Breida’s inefficient campaign did not land him that high on the team leaderboards. The Giants earned more rushing production from their three different starting quarterbacks, Daniel Jones (206), Tyrod Taylor (197), and Tommy DeVito (195), a sign that change could be imminent for a team that wants to secure its backfield for when Barkley has truly departed.

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Why the Giants Should Re-sign Him

The New York Giants’ pursuit of resigning Saquon Barkley will likely require a slightly higher input of money than the one-year deal they inked late last summer. In that case, it would behoove them not to drop the briefcase on the rest of the rushing department and an overpaid veteran.

Led by Breida, the Giants’ running back depth chart has not shown they can handle the workload nor the burden of commanding handoffs when their leader, Barkley, isn’t present. However, retaining the seventh-year player allows them to dole a responsible agreement and keep a player with experience navigating several different offenses.

Last March, the Giants resigned Breida to a one-year, $1.15 million contract with a couple of bonuses that put the total cap at $1.4 million. A lack of meaningful production in two years could warrant another type of deal like that, one that he should be open to accepting to keep his place on an active roster and at least display his good intangibles when he has the opportunity.

Among those, Breida has been good at earning the extra yards that matter in the trenches, holding career averages of 4.6 yards on the ground and 7.8 yards in the air, which are higher than his numbers in two seasons with New York. Part of those averages come from his yards after contact prowess, where the 28-year-old has 1,472 total yards and a 2.20 stat per attempt in his NFL tenure.

Compared to some ball carriers specializing in one run scheme, Breida has a body of work in both zone and inside gap looks. He fares better in the zone attack with 363 total snaps compared to 187 inside the tackles and has forced 70 missed tackles, 75 runs of 10+ yards, 805 breakaways plays (30.4% of active snaps), and a long rush ranging from 9 to 83 yards.

While he doesn’t produce volatile numbers in the passing game, Breida does a good job of securing the football and showing a little elusivity on certain plays. The Giants have increased his snaps with a receiving route over the past two seasons, posting 132 and 156 routes, respectively, to revert to a trend seen in Breida’s first two years in San Francisco.

When it’s all said and done, Breida’s intangibles don’t always align with eye-popping stats from season to season. He holds the knowledge and experience to shoulder some of the load and teach his teammates how to do the same.

Still, the one question that lingers is, could he consistently do it should the Giants ever have to call on him to be the No. 1 rusher?

Why the Giants Shouldn’t Re-sign Him

Despite the organization’s hopes to bring Barkley back for at least another season, the possibility of his leaving is real. If the team feels there is a good shot, they move on from the star running back, then they must find a suitable replacement to be the No. 1 threat.

After Barkley, the Giants have not had another ball carrier step in and be a workhorse with the pigskin in their hands. Since the 2021 season, only one running back has managed to surpass 500 rushing yards in the shadow of No. 26, and that was Devontae Booker, who tied Barkley with 593 yards in three more games that season.

In 2022, the combined total for the Giants’ backup running backs’ rushing yards was not even half of the record 1,312 yards Barkley produced and was outpaced by Daniel Jones’ 708 yards on the ground. This fall, Breida fought for a mere 151 yards and was accompanied by just 48 more from rookie Eric Gray, who didn’t live up to any hype after his fourth-round selection.

In the case of Breida, the veteran simply hasn’t produced enough to convince anyone that he’s capable of being the guy. He had three straight seasons of 100+ carries in San Francisco that resulted in 1,900 yards rushing, but in New York, he hasn’t sniffed 300 yards in a single campaign. Finding the end zone has been just as rare, with just three touchdowns in two seasons, one of which came in the postseason.

There will be a lot of names on the free agent market this offseason for the Giants to choose from, but the question is how much they will want to dedicate to the running back position when they’ve shown constraints with Barkley’s negotiations. Any choice the team makes will likely outshine the numbers Breida has given as his career starts to near the wrong side of 30 years old.

Keep or Pass?

Breida is a good candidate for familiarity with the current regime in New York and offering some positive intangibles that can matter in select plays. Yet, seeing him as a potential long-term answer, should Barkley walk, doesn’t work given his downtick in production, declining age nearing 30, and the running back shelf life.

Among the list of free agents who could do the work to improve the Giants’ rushing standing in the league, a few are Devin Singletary, Cam Akers, Kareem Hunt, and Jerrick McKinnon. Most of these players and more are better producers than Breida and could be handed low-commitment deals in light of their recent responsibilities on team depth charts.