LOS ANGELES \u2014 Kayvon Thibodeaux\u00a0got to play his first NFL game in his home city on Monday night when his Giants took on the L.A. Rams.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a long time coming for the South Central Los Angeles product, who waited until his fifth NFL season to suit up at home as a pro.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying in L.A. is super special,\u201d Thibodeaux, 25, said before making the cross-country flight. \u201cGrowing up in the city of L.A. and being a kid who dreamed about playing in the NFL, and now after five years of being in the NFL being able to get back to the West and play a game, it\u2019s super special.\u201d<\/p>\n
SoFi Stadium, which rests in Inglewood, Calif., is only 6.5 miles south of Susan Miller Dorsey Senior High School, where Thibodeaux played two years before transferring north to the Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village.<\/p>\n
That meant the ticket requests for Monday night were through the roof, and there promised to be a strong cheering section for the Giants\u2019 No. 5 in the stands.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just bought about 20 tickets,\u201d Thibodeaux said Friday. \u201cAnd I know a lot of family already got tickets. So it\u2019ll be maybe around 30 or 40 people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Giants\u2019 decision to fly out on Saturday, two days prior to the game, also gave Thibodeaux a chance to spend some extra time with his loved ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be chill,\u201d he said of their plans. \u201cWe\u2019ll probably just have a get-together, have my aunt and grandma cook some food and just hang out.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked forward to his favorite home-cooking.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom makes some crazy tacos,\u201d Thibodeaux said. \u201cBeing from LA, it\u2019s this huge kind Spanish influence. So she makes some steak tacos I\u2019m excited for.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s good timing for Thibodeaux to return home and ground himself, since he\u2019s still searching for a home in John Harbaugh\u2019s new Giants defense.<\/p>\n
Thibodeaux played only 27 snaps, or 47% of the Giants\u2019 defensive snaps, in their Week 1 win over the Dallas Cowboys. And defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson played him in seven different positions, moving him all over the defensive front from left to right.<\/p>\n
Thibodeaux\u2019s role has shifted dramatically.<\/p>\n
Wilson showed Thibodeaux at inside linebacker briefly during one spring practice. Thibodeaux has logged plenty of one-on-one pass rush snaps at defensive tackle on the inside, even though his true position is on the edge.<\/p>\n
Essentially, Abdul Carter (91% of Week 1 snaps) is now entrenched on the edge opposite Brian Burns, as Thibodeaux once was. And Thibodeaux is now in the Swiss Army knife that the Giants used Carter in as a rookie.<\/p>\n
Thibodeaux accepts his new and is executing it to the best of his ability.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gotta show up on the stat sheet and stop the run,\u201d he said of the need to produce. He said stopping the run is where it all starts, and that\u2019s his priority every play.<\/p>\n
Thibodeaux\u2019s future as a Giant even hangs in the balance, since he\u2019s playing on a fifth-year option in the final year of his rookie contract.<\/p>\n
His name has frequently come up in trade rumors, and his reduced role reinforces that there are a couple avenues the Giants could go with their pass rusher:<\/p>\n
He could earn a new contract in New York, or he could be playing somewhere else next season \u2014 or even at the midseason trade deadline, depending on how this all shakes out.<\/p>\n
Not that Thibodeaux is focused there.<\/p>\n
In fact, despite his limited snaps in Week 1, his pressure on Dak Prescott is what forced the Cowboys quarterback\u2019s interception to safety Jevon Holland. And that sequence helped seal the entire game.<\/p>\n
Thibodeaux wasn\u2019t about to pat himself on the back for that QB hit. After all, the entire Giants pass rush was still looking for its first sack of the season entering Week 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been chasing people down my whole life,\u201d Thibodeaux said. \u201cSo no, I don\u2019t give myself credit for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But a return home might have been exactly what Thibodeaux needed to thrive in this new role and continue paving the way to wherever his next home happens to be.<\/p>\n
O-LINE HAS \u2018MAFIA MINDSET\u2019<\/p>\n
Rookie right guard Francis \u201cSisi\u201d Mauigoa finished a couple of the offense\u2019s plays far downfield in their season opener against Dallas. The entire line played physically and through the whistle. Mauigoa even accidentally contacted Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo at the end of plays, he was so enthusiastic about finishing.<\/p>\n
Offensive line coach Mike Bloomgren smiled and said that\u2019s exactly what the linemen and staff have discussed about how to establish the mentality and play style they\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk all the time about convoy. We\u2019ve talked in the offensive line room about having a Mafia mindset, and that is making sure we finish for each other,\u201d Bloomgren said. \u201cWhen you talk to guys that used to be in the Mafia and are out now, I guess, supposedly the thing they always miss is the camaraderie. They miss the locker room type feel.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we\u2019ve got that,\u201d Bloomgren said. \u201cAnd they miss the love for each other. We\u2019ve got that love for each other. So we\u2019re gonna finish every play for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Kayvon Thibodeaux\u00a0got to play his first NFL game in his home city on Monday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[185310,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-471199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-kayvon-thibodeaux-homecoming-los-angeles-giants","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}