The New York Giants might have something here.<\/p>\n
The Giants have searched for years to try and find the right people and players to lead them out of the morass they have been in for more than a decade and bring the franchise back to the prominent place a four-time Super Bowl champion and an original NFL franchise should have.<\/p>\n
They have been through three GMs, nearly a half-dozen head coaches and multiple roster rebuilds while only having fleeting, occasional, success.<\/p>\n
In rookies Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo the Giants might \u2014 finally \u2014 have the players not only with the talent but with the attitude, energy and will to pull them up from the depths and set them back on a better course.<\/p>\n
That was certainly the case on Thursday night when the Giants, 1-4 and coming off a loss to the previously winless New Orleans Saints, defeated the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. Check that. The Giants not only beat the Eagles, they demoralized them in a shocking 34-17 beatdown.<\/p>\n
Players who have been through some of the recent losing seasons with the Giants, and the public flogging from the media and the fan base that has come with it, recognize what the dynamic rookie duo bring to the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir energy is contagious \u2013 Skatt and Dart, they\u2019re playing fearless. And that\u2019s something I really respect,\u201d edge defender Brian Burns, who has played the best football of any Giants defender this season, said after Thursday\u2019s game. \u201cI hope that as they get older, they age well in this league and they\u2019re going to make more calculated decisions. But right now? Hey man, balls to the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cor\u2019Dale Flott, who made one of the biggest plays of the game with a fourth-quarter interception that he returned 69 yards to set up the Giants\u2019 final touchdown, also used the word \u201ccontagious\u201d when talking about Dart and Skattebo.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s contagious,\u201d Flott said. \u201cJaxson and Skatt are two different guys, they don\u2019t even feel like rookies in the locker room. We need the energy, and they help us all out as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Giants have been through a period of more than a decade where losing and bad football have been the norm. Dart said he and Skattebo have felt the weight of that even though they weren\u2019t involved in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t be naive to everything. We hear what people say. Definitely lights a fire in us,\u201d Dart said after Thursday\u2019s victory. \u201cMe and Skatt talked about \u2013 like last week we talked about it was on us losing that game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think there\u2019s, at times, some negativity that\u2019s surrounding here. For us, some of the new guys that are coming here, we just got here, so we don\u2019t feel like we were involved in the past. We\u2019ve got a lot of winners on this team, guys who come out every single day, work their (butt) off to put on a good showing on Sundays. I feel like we\u2019re just connected. We just had some games, times and those moments where it hasn\u2019t gone our way. We do feel like we\u2019re a really good team, we have really good players. We\u2019re just trying to win games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skattebo said he and Dart are focused on changing the franchise\u2019s fortunes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do a lot of things on the side together, talk a lot together about getting this turned around,\u201d Skattebo said. \u201cNot doing it on our own, but getting everyone to buy in and continue to stay positive and work to be better.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe franchise has been a losing franchise the last couple years, but that\u2019s not who we are right now. We need to continue to build and build and build each and every day and have these guys with positive mindsets and get away from that losing mindset.<\/p>\n
Skattebo said he \u201cfelt the confidence\u201d from his teammates throughout the game on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone else is buying in, we\u2019re pushing each other, everyone\u2019s holding each other accountable and we jsut have to continue that as a team,\u201d Skattebo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the entire team feeds off Skatt and Dart\u2019s energy, the way they play the game,\u201d said veteran offensive lineman Jermaine Eleumunor.<\/p>\n
Dart took some hits on Thursday and left the game briefly for a concussion check, but Eluemunor said he believes Dart \u201cfeeds off\u201d taking, and delivering, hits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he can be truly special once we truly get this thing going,\u201d Eluemunor said, adding that the rookie is \u201creally good at making something out of nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daboll said Dart is \u201ca leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve liked everything about Dart since we got him,\u201d Daboll said. \u201cAgain, it\u2019s not perfect. Not gonna be perfect, whatever it may be. But he\u2019s got toughness, I think he sees the field well, he\u2019s got athleticism, vision, leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe leads by his play, he leads by his words, he leads by his emotion, he leads by his loose plays. Glad he\u2019s my quarterback, our quarterback. Again, he\u2019s a rookie. As one of my mentors once said, Let\u2019s not give him a gold jacket right now. Coach Parcells. But he\u2019s a good young player to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Giants have now beaten a 4-0 Los Angeles Chargers team and a 4-1 defending Super Bowl champion Eagles team in their last two home games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel like anytime we go out there on the field, anybody we\u2019re playing against, we have a chance to win,\u201d Dart said. \u201cDoesn\u2019t matter what Vegas says. It doesn\u2019t matter what the spread is. I was watching Pat McAfee, they are talking about the point spread of who is going to win the game. We don\u2019t care about that stuff. We feel like we\u2019re confident to go out there, put on a good performance, and win games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those victories, of course, were separated by a loss to a previously winless Saints team in New Orleans. That should remind everyone that things won\u2019t turn around overnight for this Giants team.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe and Skatt just have a lot of talks. We sat next to each other on the plane back [from New Orleans],\u201d Dart said. \u201cIt definitely hurt us last week a lot because we felt like we absolutely should have won that game. We had talks during the week. We just kept telling each other we got each other; we\u2019re going to lay it all on the line each and every play for each other. We try to message that to our teammates as much as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know everybody is going to rally around each other the more we have performances like this. We can\u2019t get too high; we can\u2019t get too low. The most important thing is the next play, the next moment. For us it\u2019s going to be this next game.\u201d<\/p>\n
What does beating the defending Super Bowl champions on national television, especially doing so decisively, show the Giants?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows us how good we can be, and how if we\u2019re on our details and on our execution and playing together all three phases we can beat anybody,\u201d said safety Tyler Nubin. \u201cGives us a lot of confidence, but it also shows us that when we\u2019re not locked in anybody can beat us as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nubin, a 2024 second-round pick, said there is \u201c100 percent\u201d a different attitude within the Giants this season from a year ago when the team went 3-14.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re focused on anything but winning this year,\u201d Nubin said.<\/p>\n
Nubin credited Dart and Skattebo, but added Daboll has also been a factor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tone that Dabs set in the offseason and the tone that he\u2019s continued to preach \u2014 we\u2019re gonna go win, we\u2019re not just gonna go play, we\u2019re gonna try to go win a game,\u201d Nubin said. \u201cI think the energy he\u2019s brought and the energy the new guys have brought definitely have turned it from what it was last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe, just maybe, years from now Giants fans will remember the drafting of Dart, Skattebo and Abdul Carter, who had a quiet night against the Eagles but is still an extraordinary young player, as what finally turned the fortunes of the franchise.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a long season, so we have to bring it every single day. We have to try to keep that the culture. We have to stack wins. We can\u2019t have performances where we play really good, next game we turn the ball over five times. That stuff can\u2019t happen,\u201d Dart said. \u201cWe have to try to be consistent. From an attitude perspective, it\u2019s kind of the energy we\u2019re just trying to bring here. The intensity of coming to work every single day. I think guys are trying to do that and rally around each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dart wants to be part of erasing the negativity that has dogged the franchise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it,\u201d he said. \u201cI understand the most important thing for everybody is winning. As competitors, that\u2019s how we feel, too. I feel like this city is starving for that. We are starving for that. We hate losing. It\u2019s the worst feeling in the world. We just try to do our best, regardless of what outside noise is, we try to keep everything internal between us. I have all the confidence in the world in every single player on this team. We\u2019ve just got to try to do our best to rally and stay consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Giants might have something here. The Giants have searched for years to try and find…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99,81823],"class_list":{"0":"post-214264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-valentines-views"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}