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One thing that we now know about the Green Bay Packers’ upcoming game against the New York Giants on Sunday afternoon: Russell Wilson will not be the Giants’ starting quarterback.
On Wednesday morning, the Giants revealed that they are making Jameis Winston their number two quarterback behind rookie Jaxson Dart, moving Winston up ahead of Wilson on the depth chart. Dart is currently recovering from a concussion that he suffered last Sunday against the Chicago Bears, and the fact that it is his fourth concussion of the season makes it highly likely that he will sit out Sunday’s game.
As a result, Winston is now in line to start if Dart indeed cannot play this weekend, giving the Giants a higher variance to their offense.
That offense was already going to be a bit unpredictable on Sunday, however, thanks to the Giants’ coaching change. The team fired head coach Brian Daboll and installed former offensive coordinator Mike Kafka as their interim head coach. Kafka has been the primary playcaller for the Giants’ offense over most of the last two-and-a-half seasons, but even though that role is not changing, he may still take the unit in a new direction with Daboll no longer being in charge.
Winston has not played in a game for the Giants yet this year, serving as the team’s #3 quarterback. Last year he played in 12 games for the Cleveland Browns, starting seven of them, and he was his usual self in that he threw for a lot of yards and a lot of turnovers. In those seven starts, which covered consecutive games from week 8 to week 15, Winston threw for 291 yards per game with 12 touchdowns, but he also threw 12 interceptions as well and posted a passer rating of 79.8.
Interestingly, Winston’s career as a starter primarily covered five seasons from 2015 to 2019, all with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but two of the three games he has played against the Packers were as a member of the New Orleans Saints, one each in the 2021 and 2023 seasons. His only game against Green Bay as a Buccaneer was in 2017, a 26-20 Packers overtime victory. Winston threw for 270 yards and two touchdowns, but he was sacked 7 times, three times by Clay Matthews. One of those sacks, by Kenny Clark, caused a fumble that Dean Lowry returned 62 yards for a touchdown.
As a Saint, Winston started the opener in 2021, which was played in Jacksonville due to a hurricane affecting the city of New Orleans, and in that game he completed 14 of 20 passes for 148 yards and a whopping five touchdowns in a 38-3 Saints rout. His only other game against Green Bay came in relief of injured starter Derek Carr in early 2023; in that game the Saints led 17-0 early in the fourth quarter, but Green Bay mounted a comeback and won an 18-17 thriller as New Orleans’ game-winning field goal attempt missed with a...
