Brandon Jacobs yells to the crowd before a 2010 game...

Brandon Jacobs yells to the crowd before a 2010 game against the Lions. (Oct. 17, 2010) Credit: David Pokress

Brandon Jacobs was talking about the Giants as a team, but he very easily could have been talking about himself.

"I'm kind of glad we got humbled early in the season," he said Sunday after the Giants' 28-20 win over the Lions. "Nothing's a surprise now."

Jacobs has gone through the same roller coaster his team has, and seems to have come out with a fresher attitude. Jacobs got angry about his role in the backfield when the Giants were 1-2, but during this three-game winning streak, he's been more of a team player.

And he's been rewarded: His two touchdowns Sunday gave him four in the last three games, cementing his role as the goal-line alternative to Ahmad Bradshaw's elusive gains outside the red zone.

Bradshaw piled up 133 yards on 19 carries to Jacobs' 35 on nine, but it was Jacobs dancing in the end zone twice, including one on a 6-yard run with 3:24 left that sealed the win.

"When it's going the way it's been going, the [touchdowns are more than enough]," Jacobs said.

He has only 45 carries for the season, compared with 106 through six games a season ago. "You've got to accept it for what it is," he said. "I just keep striving to make myself better, make the team better. It's not the end of the world."

Jacobs visibly has been more supportive of his teammates in the last three games, particularly of Bradshaw, who is well on his way to his first 1,000-yard rushing season. Bradshaw has 582 yards through six games and is averaging 5.3 yards a carry.

"That's my little brother from another mother right there," Jacobs said.

When Bradshaw broke a 45-yard run late in the fourth quarter that preceded Jacobs' second TD, Jacobs said this was his thought on the sideline: "Just get in the end zone. That's all I want him to do."

But it's Jacobs who is doing that of late. "With Brandon, a lot of stuff is just in his head," Justin Tuck said. "Now he's starting to get it, understand it."

Not to mention how fresh Jacobs will be, something he's never had because of the toll that 20 carries worth of pounding per game has taken on him.

"I feel like a 12-year-old boy right now," he said. "One who's never played any sports."

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