Big Blue View
Hey, the New York Giants won a football game on Sunday. Let’s see if we remember how to write about a victory, something we have rarely had a chance to do here at Big Blue View the past couple of seasons.
Jaxson Dart — Head coach Brian Daboll said Dart’s performance wasn’t perfect. Dart agreed. It was, though, something the Giants had only experienced once in their previous 15 games a victory.
The Giants did not ask Dart to carry too much of a load in the passing game. He went 13 of 20 for just 111 yards and took five sacks, at least a couple of them his own fault for not getting rid of the ball. He ran for 54 yards and a touchdown, though. He did not turn the ball over. None of his passes, in fact, were thrown into real danger.
Dart played with toughness that has to be infectious. He worked through a left hamstring injury that mostly took the designed quarterback run out of the Giants’ playbook. He worked through the loss of star wide receiver Malik Nabers. He took hits and kept getting up, saying only that “it was just a football game.”
Dart made winning plays. None were bigger than a third-and-5 completion for 13 yards and a first down to Theo Johnson that put the Giants in position to run out the clock with 2:38 remaining against a Chargers team that had no timeouts remaining. It was a play that Dart and Johnson had basically drawn up in the dirt, modifying the way it is designed in Daboll’s playbook.
Dexter Lawrence — We wondered throughout the season’s first three weeks when the game-changing version of the best defensive tackle in football would show up. That happened in the first half on Sunday when Lawrence batted a Justin Herbert pass into the air, intercepted it and rumbled 37 yards to the Chargers’ 3-yard line to set up a Jude McAtamney field goal.
Lawrence did finish with just one tackle, but it was for a loss. I guess that if you are going to make plays, you might as well make big ones.
Lawrence, though, is going to need to explain getting tackled by a quarterback inside the 5-yard line.
Cam Skattebo — The rookie running back averaged only 3.2 yards per carry, but toted the rock 25 times. Combined with what Dart did on the ground and through the air, Skattebo kept churning out just enough yardage to keep the Giants’ offense on schedule. Like Dart, he plays with a toughness and energy that have to rub off on his teammates.
Abdul Carter/Kayvon Thibodeaux/Brian Burns — What Carter, Thibodeaux and Burns did on Sunday was what Giants defensive coordinator Shane Bowen — and Giants fans — dreamed about when Carter was selected No. 3 overall. They took advantage of an already-wounded Chargers offensive line that saw star left tackle Joe Alt suffer an ankle injury early in the...
