Big Blue View
Week 6 in the NFL opens with your New York Giants hosting the Philadelphia Eagles. The 1-4 Giants are 7.5-point underdogs to the 4-1 Eagles. Can the Giants pull off a major upset? See what your Big Blue View staff writers think about that game and the rest of the Week 6 action in our staff picks.
Had Malik Nabers and Darius Slayton not gone down, I might have said that the Giants have a path to victory in this game. Even now, I can’t say that the Giants winning would be a mind-blowing upset. I view them as a team that can play with — and even beat — any team in the NFL. On the flip side of that, I think this is a team that can lose to any team in the NFL.
If I’m being honest, I’m more interested to see how Jaxson Dart and the Giants respond after the collapse against the Saints than I am in the outcome of this game. Can Dart put it behind him and take it as a learning experience? Can Kafka and Daboll adapt to their new Naber-less reality and find ways to move the ball through the air? Can the defense rebound and play like they did against the Chargers and in the first half against the Saints?
I can’t in good conscience pick the Giants in this game. They’re too good at beating themselves, at finding ways to lose games they can or should win.
Pick: Eagles
Amazon has announced a deal to pay the void year costs of another Eagles free agent signing, and in return Nick Sirianni promises to sit his starting defense and play all backups against the Giants as an enticement to get anyone to watch this otherwise probably uncompetitive game. The shame of it is that despite being undefeated until the 4th quarter last Sunday, this Eagles team is not (yet) the 2024 juggernaut. Their passing game has been underwhelming…if only the Giants had a defensive coordinator who would disguise defenses and give Philly and Jalen Hurts a little of its own Vic Fangio medicine. Even their running game hasn’t been great, whether because of cracks in the vaunted offensive line or Saquon Barkley spending too much time watching his new documentary. When the Giants are on offense, the question is whether Jaxson Dart will be able to complete any passes at all to his wide receivers, even though CB2 is a weakness with Kelee Ringo or old friend Adoree Jackson. Most likely we’ll see more 2-tight end sets with Theo Johnson and Daniel Bellinger being Dart’s prime targets. Any chance the Giants have will have to revolve around those two, plus Cam Skattebo and Tyrone Tracy (if he plays) being able to move the chains. The Eagles have one of the better linebacker pairs in the NFL, rookie Jihaad Campbell and risen-from-the-dead Zack Baun, and of course a stout defensive line with Jalen Carter and...
