How rookies Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo have reshaped the Giants' identity
New York Giants' Jaxson Dart, center, and Cam Skattebo celebrate after a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. Credit: AP/Adam Hunger
During those tense few moments late in the third quarter on Thursday night when Jaxson Dart was on his neurological camping trip in the medical tent on the Giants’ sideline being evaluated for a possible concussion, running back Cam Skattebo was nosing around the area like a nervous father outside the delivery room. He even tried to stick his head inside the flap but was pushed away.
There was obvious concern on Skattebo’s face. He seemed worried.
But it wasn’t about Dart’s health. It was about the doctors’.
“I was making sure that Jaxson wasn’t hurting anybody in the tent,” Skattebo said after the Giants’ 34-17 win over the Eagles. “He’s a dawg. He wants to be back on the field. I knew going over there, I needed to calm him down a little bit because I knew he was going to be on fire.”
These are the Giants now. This is their mentality on and off the field. They are brash and physical and tough and gritty and, in two of the last three games, they have been winners.
And it is all because of their two rookies who weren’t even starters a month ago, the new alphas who run around the field communicating with each other through smell and body language and instinct like wolves. They even had a synchronized touchdown celebration at the ready for this win.
During the draft in April, Dart and Skattebo became Giants. Right now, we are watching the Giants become Dart and Skattebo.
“They are very competitive individuals who have a lot of pride, toughness and belief in themselves,” coach Brian Daboll said on Friday. “I think that’s important for any team when you have players like that.”
Daboll made sure to stress that Thursday’s victory was a “collective team win” and even said Dart and Skattebo would want it looked at that way, but even in the same breath, it was hard for him to avoid pointing to the tone-setting toddlers.
“They play with an edge and they play with a style that we want our team to play with,” Daboll said.
It’s certainly not rare for rookies to join teams and make an impact. We’ve seen that over the years with the Giants as Saquon Barkley and Odell Beckham Jr. won Offensive Rookie of the Year trophies. Even last year, Malik Nabers had a record-setting first season with the team.
This seems different, though.
First of all, there are two of them. Second, it’s not only their production that is providing a spark, it’s their personalities. The Giants finally are starting to forge a positive identity, and it stems from this diaper duo.
“They are two crazy competitors,” sixth-year guard Jon Runyan Jr. told Newsday on Thursday night. “They bring great energy as rookies. They have great leadership values. They carry guys along with them. It’s been awesome. Great young energy inspiring everybody, even the vets, to play to a higher level. When they are both in the backfield, anything can happen at any given moment, so it gives you that extra boost.”
“It goes back to their mindset,” said Andrew Thomas, another sixth-year vet on the offensive line. “They just love ball. They’re not focused or concerned about how old they are or how many games they have been in. They love football, they are passionate about it, they play their tails off, and guys respond to them.”
Did Runyan think it would be possible for rookies to have that kind of impact on the essence of a team that has plenty of older players like himself?
“No,” he said. “But when you put the two of them together, it really brings something special. It’s been really cool to watch and be a part of, that’s for sure.”
Neither is putting up astounding stats that pop off the page, but do a little digging and the numbers are impressive.
Dart is the third quarterback in the Super Bowl era to rush for at least 50 yards in each of his first three career starts (Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts are the other two).
Scattebo ran for a season-high 98 yards Thursday, and according to the league’s NextGen Stats, 79 of those yards came after contact and 47 came against stacked boxes with at least eight defenders. They became the first two Giants rookies to score rushing touchdowns in the same game since Larry Heater and Leon Perry in Week 10 in 1980.
Just watching and listening to them, though, is a better indicator of the impact they are having. They say things differently from Giants of recent vintage. Maybe it is because they are unburdened by the losing of the past few years. Maybe it’s their attitudes that have allowed the Giants themselves to become edgier and earn a little arrogance.
After Thursday’s game, Dart was open about exceeding low presumptions.
“We hear what people say,” he said. “It definitely lights a fire in us . . . Quite honestly, nobody really expected us to put up a performance like this.”
Skattebo certainly endeared himself further to New Yorkers and etched a place in the rivalry with Philly when he was asked about the significance of beating the Super Bowl champs.
“They were the Super Bowl champs last year,” he corrected the questioner. “There’s a whole new season this year.”
And as the Giants are quickly learning and benefiting from, a whole new flavor to their own team this year — this month! — thanks to the two kids who have come in and taken over everything.
That’s a big ask for rookies, but to be fair, no one really asked them to do it. They simply did it.
Just as Skattebo stressed with that episode in and around the medical tent on Thursday night: They’ll be fine. It’s not them anyone should be worried about. It’s the rest of the world that needs to start being wary of them.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
