Not a lot went right for the New York Giants on Sunday in a 38-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
- They lost Cam Skattebo to a gruesome dislocated ankle, almost certainly meaning we won’t see the talented, energetic fourth-round pick on the football field until next season.
- The Giants’ defense embarrassed itself. They let Saquon Barkley run for 150 yards on 14 carries, but that might not have been the worst of it. They let Tank Bigsby, who had one carry all season before Sunday, look like former Eagle Giant-killer Boston Scott as he totaled 104 yards on just nine carries. In all, the sieve-like run defense gave up 276 yards on 33 carries, 8.4 yards per attempt.
- The Giants had Cor’Dale Flott, the best cornerback they had in uniform on Sunday, get a concussion when he was accidentally punched in the helmet by teammate Bobby Okereke.
- They probably weren’t going to win the game, anyway, but the Giants watched a series of ridiculous, score-changing calls go the Eagles’ way. A well-officiated game was likely still a loss for the Giants, but a much more representative one.
- The Giants fell to 2-6. The only time since 2017 they have not begun a season 2-6 or worse was 2022, when they started 6-1 and stumbled home with a 9-7-1 record to make the playoffs.
One thing that did go, right, though is that rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart continued to look like the real deal. It isn’t going to happen this year. Maybe it won’t happen with Brian Daboll as the head coach. Dart, though, continued on Sunday to look like the quarterback who will lead the Giants back to NFL relevance.
He certainly has the Tom Brady stamp of approval.
The man generally considered the best
quarterback to ever play the game, was impressed with Dart even before he watched Sunday’s game.
“I always look at quarterbacks and go, ‘how would I answer that question?’. When I hear Jaxson Dart, especially after last week’s loss at Denver, it was the same way.
“Taking accountability for mistakes, he also is this competitive kid. He said to me on the call this week, ‘Tom, I’m not into moral victories. So I’ve gotta make better plays, the team’s counting on me.’
“This organization loves him a lot. And they are all invested in him and there’s a lot of reasons to be.”
At the top of Sunday’s broadcast on FOX, Brady, the telecast’s analyst, said:
“If you are a New York Giants fan, I’d be excited about this young quarterback.”
Nothing about Dart’s play on Sunday, which produced a pedestrian 14 of 24 for 193 yards with a passing and rushing touchdown, made Brady think otherwise.
“Very impressed… I look at the mental/emotional parts of his game, and I’m loving those things,” Brady said during the broadcast.
Despite Sunday’s loss, and his so-so stats, Giants fans should be on board with Brady. And, with long-time New York Post columnist Steve Serby, who said this about Dart on Friday’s ‘Valentine’s Views’ podcast:
“I think he’s destined for stardom.”
Remember, too, what Eagles’ defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said about Dart last week.
“The teams that need quarterbacks that bypassed him, they’re gonna regret that.”
Dart couldn’t beat the Eagles by himself on Sunday. His best throws, a dime to Theo Johnson that would have likely at least given the Giants a first and goal, and a bomb to Darius Slayton that would have been a 68-yard touchdown if not for a questionable offensive pass interference call, went for naught.
Dart was, justifiably, frustrated after the game. And, perhaps more downcast than we have become used to.
The injury suffered by Cam Skattebo affected him.
“I was devastated,” Dart said. “It’s my boy, man, so seeing him go down and obviously reacting to what happened, that sucks. It’s the worst part of this game.”
The losing, with the Giants now 2-3 in his five starts, is something Dart just can’t stomach.
“We have to start figuring out ways to win because I do, I hate it [losing], and I’m not used to it and I’m not just going to accept it,” Dart said. “I’m not going to be okay with it and we as a team can’t be okay with it. We have to figure this out.
“I felt like, honestly, I felt like we kind of got, I’m trying to say this the right way. I thought they did just a lot more things better than we did in a lot of areas. I don’t like the feeling of – I thought they really kind of dominated most of the game and it’s an embarrassing feeling. That’s just kind of how I feel. It’s frustrating because I felt confident coming into this game. I felt obviously extra motivated because of how things happened last week and I really didn’t want one to lead to another. I’m just disappointed that we lost.”
The Giants’ seemingly bright future isn’t coming fast enough for Dart, or a similarly frustrated fan base, but the day is coming when the Giants win a lot more often than they lose.
Brady knows Dart will be a big part of the reason for that.
More thoughts
- This is somewhat of a continuation of the Dart commentary. BBV’s Chris Pflum pointed this comment from the ‘Kudos & Wet Willies’ out to me Sunday night:
Are we really going to be that ridiculous? We’re going to be indignant about one of the greatest players to ever play saying optimistic things about the rookie quarterback the franchise has placed its hopes in?
Silliness.
- After he was inactive on Sunday, I think you can officially give up on any hope of wide receiver Jalin Hyatt becoming a consistent contributor for the Giants.
- If the NFL can’t properly officiate the Tush Push — and it clearly can’t — then the play should not be in the rule book. How on earth do you rule forward progress stopped while the ball carrier is still being pushed forward? Sheesh!
- Rookie cornerback Korie Black had a rough go on Sunday. I am not, though, going to be overly critical of a seventh-round pick who just signed a few days ago and was playing his first NFL snaps on defense.
- I think offensive coordinator Mike Kafka has done an excellent job calling plays this season and getting mileage out of an under-manned Giants’ offense. I really would have preferred he not call back-to-back designed quarterback runs for Dart in the final three minutes of a game the Giants were trailing by 25 points.
