Welcome back. It's the big blue banter New York Giants football podcast. I'm Dan Schneier.

Join as always my co-ist Nick Falado coming to you after the first New York Giants victory of the 2025 season.

And also the first time in the history of the NFL, at least this is according to the NFL on CBS, that a quarterback has won his first career game,

his first career start, I should say, against a three and O team or better, or at least this is in the last 20 years.

And this is actually the first time Nick since 2008.

This wasn't according to the CBS broadcast that, that 0-3 team has beat a three-and-o team. So this is rare, you know, the Giants are in rare, what's the word for it? They're in rare company, I should say, for this kind of victory today. It was a really good win against a really good football team, a three-and-o Chargers team. But obviously, you know, which we'll get to as well, it's a little bit of a bittersweet win because the Giants lost one of their best players for the entire season, most likely with a torn ACL. So where, how were you feeling after the Giants won this game? Yeah, it was a good complimentary football effort by the New York Giants that they were actually able to finish. That's, that's been our big thing, right? Like this team cannot finish. And there were moments, man. There were moments in the second half where I were like, not again. This isn't going to happen again. I felt a little bit better with this specific game where I was like, I think the Giants will finish this off, right? You had the two interceptions. They got 10 points off those two interceptions. So the defense really carried the weight. And look at the offense.

They did their job as well. And the offense lost their star player. They lost Malik neighbors.

They had a rookie quarterback with a rookie running back. And they were still able to move the

football against a very talented and well-coached defense. And I felt like the special

teams unit also had their plays. And I kind of find it creative what they're doing on special teams, putting Kay Banks back there, along with Devin Singletary with Gunnarol-Schefsky. So overall, I was obviously pleased with the win, but man, it sucks because Malik neighbors, right when he went down, he saw his face, you're like, this is, that's absolutely tragic and terrible. And now the Giants are going to have to scramble midseason.

They don't have a buy week until week 14 to figure out exactly what they're going to do. It's next man up mentality. That's a great coach speak thing to say. And it does make sense. And it is true. but when the catalyst, when the fulcrum of the offense goes down,

it's going to fundamentally change everything that you had planned

for an offense that was already evolving with Jackson Dart as we saw in the beginning of this game. Yeah, you're right. There is no, despite what the coach peak might be, there is no way to replace this player. I mean, we've seen coach speak not serve its purpose for future. I mean, prior injuries. Andrew Thomas goes down. There is no

coach speak. Ah, next man up bullshit. You're done. When he was down, the Giants are done. I hope that's not going to be the case for the Giants this season when Malik Neighbors. I might make the case and we'll find out this season. We actually unfortunately get to find this out that Andrew Thomas was even more important to the giants emily neighbors but i'm not sure that's up in the air and we'll

find this out to Andrew Thomas was even more important to the Giants and Malik neighbors. But I'm not sure that's up in the air. And we'll find this out. To me, the most disappointing part by far about this Malik neighbor's injury. I mean, it's only week four of the season. He was playing, in my opinion, like one of the best receivers in the NFL, all the stats backed it up to air yardage, target share, his ability to just make catches anywhere away from his frame. He was doing

everything for them on offense and the passing game. But the biggest disappointment for me,

Nick, is just what it means for Jackson Dart. This is a rookie quarterback who really needs

some help. And neighbors was that help. And I wanted to watch those two grow together. I wanted

to see them develop a rapport. And I want to see what kind of plays they could make. They made a few plays before he got hurt in this game. But that is now all gone. And the biggest factor moving forward is, you know, we saw it with Barclay and we see it with a lot of NFL players. A year off the ACL, that first year back, they're not really the same player. So who knows, maybe league neighbors can buck that trend, but it's really just a super disappointing injury. Giants had a string of injuries. I saw a stat by I think Yahoo Sports posted it. Just a slew of ACL injuries on the MetLife Stadium turf since it started. I know a lot of people, this is a controversial opinion. I talked about it with some people on Twitter today. Some people say, you know, it's not because of the turf, it's other factors, whatever it may be. It seems to be happening a lot at MetLife Stadium. And it seems to be happening to some of their best players. So another, you know, it is what it is at this point. We have to move on, I think, and just focus on the game. And we'll talk a little bit maybe after that about what the Giants can do moving forward

without a player like this with what's left at receiver.

Yeah, absolutely.

But the game, man, I mean, Jackson Dart first drive.

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