Cam Skattebo's running style might be illegal at times, but he's not going to change his ways. The Giants running back delivered a huge game in New York's 26-21 overtime win over the Houston Texans, but he sparked some controversy early in the game. During the first quarter, Skattebo got called for one of the most surprising penalties of the week.
The Giants running back got flagged for a rarely enforced unnecessary roughness, with the officiating crew ruling that he had lowered his helmet to draw contact. Cam Skattebo was penalized for this run... pic.twitter.com/tEHPezmJ3F The 15-yard penalty was surprising because officials don't usually flag an offensive player for lowering their helmet. Heading into Week 7, they had only thrown four penalty flags all season for lowering their helmets, and only one of those came against an offensive player.
That other player was Houston's Foster Moreau, but he was flagged for making a tackle on a punt return in Week 2, so Skattebo is the only player to have been penalized while playing offense. On one hand, Skattebo was bound to get penalized at some point because he's a human battering ram who seeks out contact with defensive players. Despite his running style, this was the first time in his career that he had ever been flagged for lowering his helmet, but it might not be his last.
Following the game, the Giants running back was asked whether he might change his running style to avoid future penalties, and apparently, he's not planning to change anything. "The NFL loves to post me when I do stuff like that but then also wants to take stuff from me," Skattebo said in his postgame comments. "I'm going to run the ball like I want to run the ball.
If I'm going to continue to get flags for it or fined for it, guess I'm going to play for free." In layman's terms, Skattebo is still planning to truck over defenders whenever he has the ball. The problem with this plan is that there's a good chance Giants coach John Harbaugh won't like it. Now that Skattebo has been penalized, officials will likely be on the lookout for him to possibly lower his head going forward, and if he gets flagged, it will cost the Giants 15 yards.
If Skattebo continues to get flagged because he's unwilling to change his ways, that will almost certainly draw the ire of Harbaugh, which is not what the running back needs, because he's already been in the doghouse this year. He had zero touches in Week 6, but he made up for that with a huge game against the Texans, rushing for 124 yards and a touchdown on just 17 carries. If Skattebo doesn't want to end up back in Harbaugh's doghouse, he'll probably need to slightly adjust his running style so he doesn't get flagged going forward.
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