Big Blue View
The New York Giants get to finish off Week 13 by traveling to Foxboro, Mass. to take on the New England Patriots on Monday night
These two teams are familiar foes with just about as much history as two teams in different conferences can have. Of course, these aren’t the Eli Manning Giants, nor do they face the Tom Brady Patriots. And at face value, it would look like the 2-10 Giants and 10-2 Patriots are two teams heading in different directions.
However, the Giants are “only” 7.5-point underdogs on the road. That’s likely a reaction to the fact that they were 13.5-point underdogs on the road to the 6-4 Detroit Lions last week, but led by 10 points for significant stretches of the game.
The Giants blew the lead and lost the game in overtime, but that doesn’t change the fact that their depleted offense is punching well out of their (presumed) weight class. Even without their starting quarterback, top wide receiver, top running back, and a host of injuries on defense, the Giants have been giving some of the best teams in the NFL all they can handle.
Starting quarterback Jaxson Dart has cleared the concussion protocol, which adds intrigue to the game. Likewise, there’s the added intrigue of the fact that Mike Kafka is pretty familiar with Patriots’ head coach Mike Vrabel. The two met regularly in their respective stints with the Kansas City Chiefs and Tennessee Titans. Over that period, Kafka helped game plan to beat Vrabel’s defense four times from 2018 to 2021. The two met again in the first week of 2022, when the Giants stunned the Titans in week 1.
Can Kafka do it again? Can his offense once again put the Giants in position for an upset?
Injuries always play a big role in the outcome of games as the season wears on and attrition takes its toll. Both of these teams have big questions on both sides of the ball, and those questions could determine the outcome of the game.
For our purposes, the big questions are what the Giants’ offense looks like now that rookie QB Jaxson Dart has cleared the concussion protocol, and how much injuries along the defensive line will impact the Patriots’ defense as a whole.
Now that Dart has cleared the protocol, he’ll get the start against the Patriots on Monday night, per interim head coach Mike Kafka. Jameis Winston is playing well, but Dart continuing to gain experience and furthering his development are still paramount.
Starting Dart has an added strategic advantage as well. Nobody has seen Dart in a game plan designed from the ground up (and called) by Mike Kafka, and that bit of uncertainty can slow down the Patriots’ defense or cloud their game planning. And while we’re unlikely to see Kafka use Dart as a runner with quite the same frequency as Brian Daboll did, the rookie’s legs are simply too potent a weapon to ignore, and...
