News Article
Published
Oct 19, 2026 at 11:36 AM EDT
Stephen A. Smith doesn’t believe Cam Skattebo’s disappearing act was an accident.
The New York Giants running back logged six snaps and zero carries in a loss to the New Orleans Saints, and head coach John Harbaugh insisted afterward that nobody benched him. Smith, in a clip shared on X, said Harbaugh should have owned the decision.
Smith addressed Harbaugh directly.
“Having said that, John Harbaugh, let me look into camera and say this to this former Super Bowl championship coach. What you should have done was said it was intentional, because you’re sick of Cam Skattebo, because guess what? I am too. And I mean this respectfully. That young brother can play, and I wish him nothing but the best,” Smith said.
His gripe is that the backflips and endorsement deals have arrived faster than the production.
He added that a former Super Bowl-winning coach has the resume to speak plainly. When a team’s RB1 never gets a carry, Smith said, “There ain’t no [expletive] accident.”
Harbaugh’s account was different. He told reporters all four backs split first-half work evenly while the staff waited for one of them to take charge.
“It wasn’t by design for him not to carry the ball. It was just, when he was in there, we didn’t call any runs,” Harbaugh said.
The player himself read it as discipline. Skattebo said he was “punished” for what happened a week earlier.
Overtime against the Washington Commanders is where it went wrong. New York sat in field goal territory when he coughed the ball up, and the game finished deadlocked.
Skattebo has put the ball on the ground four times in six games during his second year in the league.
Tyrone Tracy Jr. topped the group with six carries, while Devin Singletary and Najee Harris got one apiece. New York ran 20 times for 84 yards as a team.
Even the coach doesn’t love the four-way split.
“Somebody needs to step up and be the back. None of those guys have done that yet,” he said.
Six snaps is a slim workload for a back Smith treats as the starter. Until one of the four claims the job, the 3-2-1 Giants plan to keep splitting the carries.