34-17 upset of the Eagles<\/a>. The offensive line allowed only three quarterback hits.<\/p>\nOn the other side of the ball, the Giants held former teammate Saquon Barkley to an average of 2.7 yards on the final 10 of his 12 carries, and generated 16 pressures (three sacks) on Jalen Hurts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the way we want to play,\u201d head coach Brian Daboll said. \u201cWe want to play physical. We want to try to control the line of scrimmage. It\u2019s a very important part of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
No need to remind the Eagles, who likely will retire the jersey numbers for offensive linemen Jason Kelce and Lane Johnson (still active) as well as defensive linemen Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox in the near future.<\/p>\n
Giants running back Cam Skattebo (44) pushes his way into the end zone during the third quarter of the Giants and Philadelphia Eagles game in East Rutherford, NJ. Bill Kostroun\/New York Post<\/p>\n
In winning 14 of the previous 17 meetings, the Eagles outrushed the Giants (156 to 107 yards per game) and created more quarterback pressure (47 to 41 total sacks).<\/p>\n
Those numbers were flipped on their head for one game, and are perhaps a harbinger of a more competitive rivalry in the Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo Era.<\/p>\n
There is no asterisk for Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter and left guard Landon Dickerson missing the game because there was none when the Giants were without left tackle Andrew Thomas or edge Kayvon Thibodeaux. Center John Michael Schmitz Jr. (concussion) missed the final 32 snaps Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cProps to the guys up front for all the effort they gave me and this team,\u201d Skattebo said after running for 98 yards and three short-yardage touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Kayvon Thibodeaux (5) reacts after a fumble recovery during the fourth quarter of the Giants and Philadelphia Eagles game in East Rutherford, NJ. Bill Kostroun\/New York Post<\/p>\n
Skattebo became the first player in the NFL this season to have at least 18 carries in a game without a rush for zero or negative yards. He gained 47 yards against boxes with at least eight defenders, per NextGenStats.<\/p>\n
By scoring Skattebo touchdowns on all three of their trips inside the 20-yard line \u2014 not to mention Dart\u2019s touchdown run from the 20 \u2014 the Giants climbed out of the NFL basement in red-zone efficiency.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something we\u2019re building and working on,\u201d left guard Jon Runyan Jr. said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always been able to move the ball since I\u2019ve been here, and we struggle to get over the hump and score in the red zone. The offensive line is very good. We played a super complementary game \u2026 and everything clicked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jermaine Eluemunor of the New York Giants lines up before a play during an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles at MetLife Stadium on October 9, 2025 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Getty Images<\/p>\n
To no surprise, the return of Thomas, to left tackle, from a 13-game absence has had an elevating effect on the offensive line. He has allowed two pressures (no sacks) on 130 pass-blocking snaps in four games, per Pro Football Focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we\u2019ve been protecting our a\u2013es off,\u201d right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor said. \u201cBut Dart is really good at making something out of nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Take this sideline interaction between Eluemunor and quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney as an example of the responsibility felt toward protecting the spark plug Dart.<\/p>\n
\u201cDart loves those QB runs,\u201d Eluemunor said. \u201cSeeing him get hit, I go up to Shea like, \u2018Stop f\u2013king running him! He\u2019s like, \u2018He f\u2013king wants to run!\u2019 I\u2019ll shut up then. My bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart (6) runs the ball in for a touchdown during the first quarter of the Giants and Philadelphia Eagles game in East Rutherford, NJ. Bill Kostroun\/New York Post<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s only half the story.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo behind the scenes with Big Blue\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Giants by Paul Schwartz, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The defensive veterans also took two key steps last week: Urging coordinator Shane Bowen to be more aggressive in his calls and holding a players only meeting to reinforce focusing on the details. The result was two takeaways.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a rookie quarterback, to have a defense play that hard, to make big plays,\u201d Dart said, \u201cthat helps me out a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley (26) in the second half at MetLife Stadium Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in East Rutherford, NJ. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
With Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Thibodeaux and Abdul Carter, the Giants finally have a defensive line capable of winning snaps against the Eagles offensive line of three Pro Bowlers (Johnson, Dickerson and Cam Jurgens) plus vastly underrated left tackle Jordan Mailata.<\/p>\n
You wouldn\u2019t have guessed that stopping the run has been a two-year issue for the Giants \u2014 a partial credit to the recent return of defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches, who missed three games due to an injury.<\/p>\n
After the Saints averaged 2.9 yards per carry in Nunez-Roches\u2019 first game back, Barkley had six of his 12 runs stuffed for one yard or less.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want Saquon to get off because he has the ability to hurt you really bad,\u201d Burns said. \u201cTrying to keep him under wraps. And when it was our opportunity to get after Hurts, we did that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the Giants slipped on midnight green uniforms and started flapping their arms like wings, it still wouldn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[26705,28665,68034,123537,28664,977,349,1239,27557,99],"class_list":["post-218806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-andrew-thomas","tag-brian-burns","tag-dexter-lawrence","tag-jermaine-eluemenor","tag-kayvon-thibodeaux","tag-new-york-giants","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-saquon-barkley","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218806","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=218806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}