Giants hire Alabama’s Burton Burns as running backs coach

The New York Giants hired Jason Garrett, a former NFL quarterback and head coach, as offensive coordinator to work with Daniel Jones. Now they are bringing in Burton Burns to work with Saquon Barkley as the team’s running backs coach.

Burns, 67, was most recently the running backs coach at Alabama (2007-17) as well as the Crimson Tide’s assistant athletic director. It was in Tuscaloosa where Burns first met Giants head coach Joe Judge, who was a special teams assistant on Nick Saban’s staff.

Burns is best known for his work with three Alabama Heisman Trophy finalists: Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson, and Derrick Henry. Both Ingram (2009) and Henry (2015) won the Heisman while Richardson (2011) came in third.

The Crimson Tide won five national championships (2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017) while Burns was on the staff. He was also on Tommy Bowden’s staff at Clemson (1999-2006) and was an assistant at Tulane (1994-98) and Southern (1981-85).

Burns, a former fullback who played for Tom Osborne at Nebraska, now turns his attention to Barkley.

Barkley, the second overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft and that season’s Offensive Rookie of the Year, was limited to 13 games in 2019 with a high ankle sprain with a noticeable drop in production (1,307 yards and 11 touchdowns on 261 carries in ’18 vs. 1,003 yards and six touchdowns on 217 carries in ’19).

The lowlight of Barkley’s season occurred in a Week 10 loss to the New York Jets where he managed just one yard on 13 carries. He attributed his down season to taking time off at the beginning of last offseason, something he vowed not to do this time around.

Ingram, now with the Baltimore Ravens, took to Twitter to let Barkley know how he feels about Burns.

Best coach I ever had!! @saquon you blessed with this one young bull ✊🏾💯 https://t.co/kXhagMfGkk

— Mark Ingram II (@markingram21) January 18, 2020

Judge’s staff is taking shape. Besides Garrett and Burns, he brought in Patrick Graham to be the team’s defensive coordinator and Jerry Schuplinski as quarterbacks coach. Special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey, assistant special teams coordinator Tom Quinn, and wide receivers coach Tyke Tolbert are holdovers from Pat Shurmur’s staff.

– Curtis Rawls is a Managing Editor for Full Press Coverage and covers the NFL and the New York Giants. Please like and follow on Facebook and Twitter. Curtis can be followed on Twitter @CuRawls203.