Myles Garrett is still the best defensive player in football and that makes the New York Giants the unfortunate team that has to face him when he’s as pissed off and motivated as he’s ever been. With as many factors working in Garrett’s favor as were working against him in Week 1, that makes Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart the unlucky person who is likely to be desperately trying to evade the reigning Defensive Player of the Year next week.
I wouldn’t want to be Dart on September 20.
Ignore the Box Score
This was the fourth
time in Garrett’s career that he recorded no tackles and no sacks, but it doesn’t mean that he was sluggish. In fact, Garrett recorded a get-off of 0.59 seconds, per Next Gen Stats, which isn’t just “elite”.
It’s more elite than elite.
Garrett, the NFL’s top pass rusher, had a get-off of .70 seconds in 2025. This was significantly quicker than that. Likely one of the best marks of his career for a single game.
He also had five pressures, according to NGS.
If you’re worried about Garrett because he didn’t get a sack, that’s absurd. He had two games in 2024 when he recorded zero tackles, and then the next season he had 23 sacks. He had 14 sacks in 2024.
Trent Williams vs Andrew Thomas
Giants left tackle Andrew Thomas is a great tackle, but he’s not Trent Williams. Garrett’s first assignment as a Ram was to go against the best left tackle in the NFL, a first ballot Hall of Famer. Credit to both players, as giving up zero sacks to Garrett is an accomplishment few tackles will enjoy, but Trent Williams is one of them.
Expect Chris Shula to find additional ways to get Garrett free to the quarterback next week, like finding opportunities to match him against right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor.
Brock Purdy vs Jaxson Dart
Purdy had a sack rate of 3.73% last season, which is elite. Dart had a sack rate of 9.36%, which is not.
Jaxson Dart might be sacked 10+ next times next week.
Australia vs Los Angeles
Garrett had to travel across the world for his first game with the Rams. He’ll still have to travel across the world before this game, but he’ll have about 10 days to prepare in the same place, and the drive to work might only take 45 minutes or an hour depending on traffic.
Addition of Aaron Donald?
Week 2 could see the return of Aaron Donald, another player worthy of double-teams alongside Myles Garrett. If Donald is 80% of the player he once was, that’s about 80% greater than Braden Fiske.
Healthier vs Less Healthy
When Turf Show Times reported that Garrett was missing practices due to his knee, there were times when those articles were met with a lot of pushback that this wasn’t real news. Come to Thursday, and now Garrett’s saying that he needs to “get back to the player I know I can be”…
That’s one hell of a statement about his health.
If Garrett gets his knee back up to 100% and starts practicing in full again, watch out.
Myles Garrett will be just fine
I wouldn’t worry about Garrett, he’s going to be one of the top players in the NFL again. I might worry about Jaylen Watson. I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high for Terrance Ferguson. But Garrett had so many things working against him in Week 1 — and so many things working for him in Week 2 — that I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the NFL’s sack leader by October 1.
