{"id":89088,"date":"2026-01-04T23:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T23:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/89088\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T23:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T23:06:09","slug":"4-things-we-learned-from-the-giants-34-17-victory-over-the-cowboys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/89088\/","title":{"rendered":"4 things we learned from the Giants\u2019 34-17 victory over the Cowboys"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t think there was\u2026or at least I don\u2019t think there should have been\u2026 much player evaluation going on during today\u2019s meaningless New York Giants<\/a> game against the Dallas Cowboys<\/a>. (Did the Giants keep Kenny Golladay because he caught a TD pass from Davis Webb in the 2022 season finale in Philadelphia?) Both franchises had disappointing seasons, both will see upheaval to a greater or lesser extent in their coaching staffs during the off-season, and both have had defenses that have been pretty offensive to their fans this season. Whoever the next Giants head coach is will not be analyzing tape of this game to learn anything that isn\u2019t evident on the previous 16 tapes.<\/p>\n

The main differences in the two teams have been that the Cowboys\u2019 quarterback situation has been settled all season, they have two premier wide receivers who have been healthy all or much of the season, they have two of the NFL\u2019s best placekickers and punters, and while Matt Eberflus may be short-lived as their defensive coordinator, at least he hadn\u2019t blown five fourth quarter leads this season.<\/p>\n

Still, the Giants showed signs of life last week in Las Vegas, and according to the calculations of Doug_Analytics<\/a>, Saturday night\u2019s Seahawks victory over the 49ers left the Giants with a slightly larger sliver of hope that they could get the No. 1 draft pick. It would require a number of things to go right in this and other games today, and a worst case scenario was the Giants dropping all the way to N0. 7.<\/p>\n

What did we learn today about this and other aspects of this frustrating team?<\/p>\n

No No. 1 pick. That went out the window with the Giants\u2019 victory. On the plus side, the Giants entered the game with the chance to pick as low as No. 7. Their final landing spot depends on the results of the 4:25 games involving the Jets, Cardinals, and Commanders, but with the Browns winning and the Titans losing, the Giants can pick no higher than No. 3 and no lower than No. 6.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s disappointing, but at least they beat the Cowboys for a change, and Dak Prescott for a change (even though he only played a half). I\u2019ll take what I can get.<\/p>\n

You had to feel sorry for Jaxson Dart. He was playing his heart out today as he always does. With Malik Nabers out almost all of his time as QB1, and with Wan\u2019Dale Robinson sitting the game out after breaking the 1,000-yard mark, the pickings were slim for Dart to find receivers to throw to. For the second time this season, Darius Slayton had a long TD reception called back by a questionable offensive pass interference call. The Isaiah Hodgins of 2022 doesn\u2019t seem to exist anymore. Daniel Bellinger helped with a TD on an improvised shovel pass from Dart but otherwise did little. Chris Manhertz dropped his only target, as well as whiffing on a block that allowed Dart to be sacked. Why is he on the roster?<\/p>\n

Enter the Giants\u2019 secret weapon: Gunner Olszewski?<\/p>\n

Olszewski, in a six-year NFL career entering this season, had a total of 17 pass receptions in 24 targets for 223 yards. Today he had eight catches in nine targets for 102 yards, an almost 50% enhancement of his career stats. Olszewski of course also has a TD pass this season, on the NFL Play of the Year to Jameis Winston, and he almost added a second one today but threw short.<\/p>\n

Give Dart some credit. Dart played well with this undermanned offense today, putting 230 passing yards and two TDs up with Olszewski as his WR1 and Tyrone Tracy (see below) as effectively his WR2.<\/p>\n

Tyrone Tracy is a pretty good RB2<\/p>\n

Perhaps I\u2019m premature anointing Cam Skattebo as RB1 given that he\u2019d only started a few games before being hurt and missing the rest of the season. We\u2019ll just have to stay tuned to see how the 2026 season plays out. What we can say, though, is that the combination of Skattebo with Tyrone Tracy, looks like a nice 1-2 punch. Tracy brings a different skill set from Skattebo. More importantly, after a rookie season in which he showed flashes but also frustrated with his proclivity for fumbles and drops, Tracy has cleaned up his act this season. His fumbles decreased from four to one, and his dropped passes from six to two.<\/p>\n

Tracy broke 100 yards rushing today against a pretty good Dallas run defense. and reached 1,000 yards for the season (h\/t: Chris Pflum). A failed wide receiver in college, Tracy caught eight passes in nine targets Sunday for 56 yards. His ability to make tacklers miss is a nice complement to Skattebo\u2019s ability to just bounce off tacklers. One thing Joe Schoen has done well in his drafts is to build a post-Barkley rushing attack with fourth and fifth round draft picks. If the Giants can just get themselves a dominant run blocking interior defensive lineman, they could have a really potent rushing attack in 2026.<\/p>\n

Would you rather have a long-range kicker or a reliable kicker?<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know what Ben Sauls can do from 50+ yards at the NFL level. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to try this season. What we do know, however, is that in three games as the Giants\u2019 place kicker, Sauls went 8-for-8 in field goals and was perfect on extra points as well.<\/p>\n

The 45-yard field goal he hit today was his longest of the season, the only one he attempted beyond 40 yards. I really wish he\u2019d gotten a couple of chances from 50 and beyond, but the Giants\u2019 offense was just too efficient \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

What I do know is that every single Sauls kick I saw was straaight and true, most of them going right down the middle, none of the them just squeezing inside the upright, and it looked like he had the leg to make them from more than 50.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love them to have a Brandon Aubrey, a guy who can keep you alive in a game from 60+ yards. Sauls may not be that. But there\u2019s something to be said for reliability. We\u2019ll see what the Giants think when they put together the 2026 roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I don\u2019t think there was\u2026or at least I don\u2019t think there should have been\u2026 much player evaluation going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,7692,7749,56],"class_list":["post-89088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-giants-analysis","tag-new-york-giants-scores-results","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}