REACTION: New York Giants UPSET the Dallas Cowboys Season Opener!

This is the Locked On Podcast Network, celebrating 10 years of your team every day. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. One of my favorite parts of game day is everything leading up to it. Getting the house ready for a watch party, putting on my favorite team hoodie, and making one last run to the store before a kickoff. You know the routine. And with my Apple Card, I can earn up to 3% unlimited daily cash back on every purchase I make with Apple Card using Apple Pay, not a month from now, but every day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today, subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA Salt Lake City branch, terms and more at applecard.com. Today's episode is brought to you by the Dell XPS. I'm Wes Goldberg from Locked On NBA Daily and Locked On Heat. So what does it feel like to have a better laptop like the Dell XPS powered by Intel Core? With a premium design that's thin and light, it feels smooth. With a responsive touchscreen, it feels fast and precise. And with long lasting battery life, it feels like non-stop energy with a laptop that can keep up. Built for those who want better, the Dell XPS. Built for you. I'm Brandon Olsen and for the first time, I get to do one of these after a regular season win. Mark Collins, two-time Super Bowl champion. Man, what a relief. A win. I'm Coach Gene Clemons and I told you, Isaiah Likely, he is who I said he was. Everything New York Giants every week. Breaking down all the big hits and game-changing plays from the G-Men. The way only the Locked On Podcast Network can. Get ready and squad up. The Giants Squad Show starts now. Into the Giants Squad Show, I am Brandon Olsen. That's Mark Collins, two-time Super Bowl champ. We got Gene Clemons over from a Giant Issue Podcast, the New York Giants on SI. And oh my goodness, does it feel good? Mark, I'm going to start with you because for those who don't know, Mark and I did this last year and it was a brutal year. And now we get to start the year covering the New York Giants after a win over the Dallas Cowboys. Want to know how damn good does it feel? Brandon and Gene, it feels great and I'm going to tell you why. What we experienced last year with that coaching staff and that roster, it was heartbreaking. And I said this before, and Brandon, we worked together. And I always say that coaching staff will either win you four games or lose you four games. And to get this win, and you saw that some of the setbacks the other Giants had with some of the penalties or whatever, you saw that coaching staff took over the range, the reigns and try to, and guided that team to a win. They didn't set themselves behind the sticks and they kept moving forward. And with the new roster and some of the additions that we'll talk about later, it looked good. And I never felt that the Giants were going to lose the game based on coaching decisions. And damn, it feels good. And you saw that through the whole game. When the Giants scored, the Cowboys scored, and the Giants always came back and did the good things that made them win. And the coaching staff did not shoot themselves in the foot and set the team back to lose the game. Yeah, I, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to make this about the old staff, right? I want to, I want to really focus in on what these people are. Everybody knows how I feel about what, especially on the defensive side and what went on last year. But I think that this is more about the identity of the team, right? Like this team wants to be able to run the ball, possess the ball, and then play good defense behind a possession style offense. They did just that. If you look at the way this game unfolded, it wasn't as if the Giants wasn't, it wasn't as if the Cowboys weren't successful and able to move the ball and able to score points. They just didn't have enough possessions. They didn't have enough time, right? The Giants, once they were able to get that touchdown to start the second half, and they went up two scores, in my brain, this game was over unless there was a turnover, because they were going to churn up all of the clock. They were going to keep moving. They've got one of the better chain movers in the business, in my opinion, that they were able to steal for, oh my God, he makes less money than Michael Mayer. Let that seep in. Like, they're paying Michael Mayer more than this guy. And I look at that and I go, whenever you can keep the ball, you can keep possession, you can keep it away from the other team, you got a chance to win. Two touchdowns almost felt like an unsurmountable, like, you know, Lee, when was the last time you saw a New York Giants team essentially just like kill the will of another team? It was great to see. And I think that that goes to Mark. I think that goes to the identity in what John Harbaugh was looking to bring here when he came over from Baltimore. Yeah, I mean, that was one thing that Mark and I were talking about a little bit before we went live of just it. There wasn't much of a doubt like it felt as if as a Giants fan, like it was like, all right, once you had the lead and you secured it, like it wasn't I was sweating at the end. I was having a great time. I told people I told Mark, I was in a Twitter space with Cowboys fans and the whole time, they were jaw-jacking and I was like, I'm not even concerned about it. I'm having a great time right now. It felt awesome. I think part of that is the coaching staff. I know we don't want to harp too much on last year, but there's a Giants team that last year blew a lot of leads. They weren't a great team at holding leads and sustaining them. But this year, it felt different, at least this game, it felt different. Gene, you mentioned the killing the ball, taking time possession there. 36 minutes, 40 seconds time of possession, 9 for 11 on third down. Mark, I'm curious your take as a defender, when you have a guy like Isaiah Likely, who just went off, and Gene, I know you're going to get a chance to talk about him. I know you're a big fan of his. But when you get a chance to or when you have to defend a guy like Isaiah Likely, how difficult is that where he's so damn good, specifically on third down, also just such a mismatch nightmare? Well, he's the security blanket for Jackson Dard. He is. And I said this previously when Isaiah signed him, he's going to be that guy when Jackson needs to make a play, they're going to find him. But let me back up on what Gene just said. And I played on teams where when you establish something, your identity, if you can run the ball, and that's what John did tonight, they ran the ball. And as a defensive player, when you can't stop the run, you can make a team one dimensional, you had a great chance of winning. And what the Giants did from the onset, they ran the ball effectively. And you can run the ball, you get four or five on first down. And as a defensive player, you don't know what the team is going to do, run or pass. It puts the defense way back because we don't know what they're going to do. And that's what the Giants done. They ran the ball effectively. They got positive yards. And when you could do that, it opens up everything, the passing game and likely had a fantastic game. He's a guy. I always compared him to a Shannon Sharp. He's that tweener that you can flex him out and you can line him up against the safety or linebacker, he's going to get open. And Jackson always looked at him first. And he threw the ball to him. He made the positive yards. But when you can run the ball effectively, like the Giants did tonight, I don't care who you're playing. You are going to be very, very good at, number one, moving the ball, keeping the clock running and limiting the possessions that the team had. This second half of tonight's game, the Cowboys had two possessions in that second half. That's ridiculous. That is what you call effectively manipulating the clock and running the ball. There was no trick plays, no dipsy-doodle crap. They did the Giants played smash-mouth football against a very good Dallas defense. Yeah, I mean, smash-mouth football. Isaiah Likely, by the way, when defended by Siobhan Revelle, one target, one catch, 19 yards. Deron Bland, one target, one catch, 15 yards. PJ Locke, one target, one catch, 12 yards. Caleb Downs, two catches, two targets, only seven yards there. Dee Winters, two targets, two catches, 12 yards. One target, one catch, 13 yards against Malik Hoker. Eight targets, four, as they are likely, eight catches, 78 yards, six first downs, and the two touchdowns. I mean, I think that a lot of us were pretty high on him coming in, but that is just, that legitimately game changing tight end, which it's not super easy to find that. Gene, how does he kind of allow you to play that level of possession, smash mouth football while also, because he's just a versatile weapon. He could be out there and it's not necessarily a tell. He's not one of those guys where it's like, well, he's not lining up in line and blocking everybody. Well, it's because his versatility has been developed throughout his time as essentially a number one receiver in college as a tight end. So what he did tonight is what he naturally knows how to do. He catches everything. He's got great hands. We still haven't even scratched the surface of all the things that he can do. Like we haven't seen him get utilized as in the screen game, which he was like lethal at when he was with Baltimore. That's going to come at some point. You also saw another extremely underrated part of his game. He's not necessarily the greatest in line blocker, but what he is is an extremely good perimeter and open field blocker, like he gets body on body. There was a pass where they threw the ball to Malik neighbors. He was coming across the middle. Go and see the guy who was setting a block for him because they both did the same thing. They sat there in the middle, dart went to neighbors, immediately likely turned, found a defender and got body on the body, which allowed Malik neighbors to get up the field. On the perimeter, when he knows how to take angles on defenders, there's a quarterback run play where dart is running to the left, neighbors is lead blocking when he read and pull. Neighbors is lead blocking. He doesn't actually get a block. What he does is, he takes the angle that makes the defender try to avoid him from the inside, which allows dart to run on the outside. Mark, you can speak to it. This is high-level chess when it comes to how to operate on the perimeter. Just understanding how to use your body, understanding how to put yourself in positions to be successful, to be the security blanket for the quarterback. Jackson Dart needed one of these guys last year, and he didn't have it. Not consistently. They tried to make Johnson it last year. He just wasn't consistent enough when Dart needed him. The other thing that I thought that they did a really good job in why Isaiah Likley is such a great fit for this style of offense. They didn't try to force feed anybody the ball. There was no quota to get Malik neighbors a certain amount of touches, or to get Isaiah Likley a certain amount of touches. It came within the flow of the game, and it allowed Jackson Dart to do what he does best. Hey, guess what, he hasn't been very good at hitting stuff over the top. Don't throw stuff over the top. Hit short and intermediate passes, and get it in the hands of the guys who can do damage afterwards. That's neighbors, that's fields, that's Likley. That's the backside of the backfield, which was critical in the second half, especially on that second drive that the Giants had, where the Cowboys just kept on doing the same like unsound thing when they were trying to bring that guy from the outside, and they just kept dumping it off to the running back. If you're not going to change, we'll just keep doing the same thing over and over again. And then third down, we need a first down, go to number nine. And that's what's exciting. When you got a guy you can go to, when it's time, when it's that moment that you need a first down. Yeah, Gene, you're right. And I'm going to tell you, piggyback on what you just said about Likley, he plays one on space. And what I mean by that, by the blocking that you just said, if he's not getting the ball, he knows how to set his body in a certain position to cut off a particular block or tackle it. I get that. But what sets this whole game up, what they were doing tonight, and you go, they really didn't even do all the things they really wanted to do. They did exactly what they had to do to win. That's the blueprint. You got to run the ball. You got to get positive yards. Once you get positive yards running the ball as a defensive player, it throws the defense off. The defensive coordinator don't know what to call. It was second and four, second and five. It makes the call on defense very difficult. But I digress. What the Giants did tonight was methodically kicked Dallas' ass. That was it. I mean, it was textbook. Once again, no trick plays. It was mano a mano. It was our guys against your guys. Our mindset against the Dallas mindset. Run, run, run. Take what the defense gives you and that's it. Once you could keep the ball for almost 40 minutes, and limit what the other team is even getting the ball, you're going to win most of those games. And some of those calls, the passing of the firsts, some of them to me were suspect, but I digress again. But overall, what I saw, and I know we're talking about Lather, but I have to, we got to measure this to what we had Lather compared to now. That's just what we have to do. This coaching staff showed us, John Harbaugh in particular showed us what we've been missing for the last maybe nine, 10 years. A guy who knows how to win games. They did not put themselves behind the sticks too many times. Couple of penalties, but man, it was methodical. It was beautiful. For not one minute, I thought, oh, we got a seven-pointer lead. Oh, what's going to happen next? No, it was perfect and I enjoyed it. Now, we'll talk about this later down the road. I tend to think this was a blueprint of what we're going to see the whole season. John Harbaugh and his staff, they know how to win. They know how to call games. Only one time the clock ran out. You know, delay a game. But you don't see that very often with John Harbaugh. I'm pretty sure they'll clean that stuff up and the rest looks good. I like what we're seeing right now. I'm enjoying this. I'm going to have a cigar later, another cocktail and I'm enjoying this night. Yeah, it's always a good night. Yeah, you get to go one of those and win over the Cowboys. You get to have a good night. When we get back, we are going to talk about this offense. We haven't talked much about Jackson Dart, which not something that you get to do, not talk about your starting quarterback that much, but that's what happens when you just have a well-coached football team. Crazy how that happens when we get back with the New York Giants squad. Feeling better can mean something different to everyone. 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More rewarding than a touchdown with time expiring. More rewarding than an 18-point comeback. More rewarding than being able to walk the Dallas Cowboys up and down MetLife and just spank that ass for 60 minutes and just have a good time there. This season, FanDuel is making the excitement go beyond what happens on the field with the all-new FanDuel Rewards Club featuring exclusive offers, surprises and more. And this season, FanDuel is making the excitement go beyond what happens on the field with the all-new Rewards Club featuring those prizes. And every week, check the FanDuel app to see what's waiting for you this time. If you dig Giants Moneyline, you got to make some money. I'm just saying. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. Visit fanduel.com to get started. And thanks again for making the Giants Squad Show your first listen after an Ass Whoop. And I am Brandon Olsen. We got two times new bowl champ, Mark Collins here. And the coach, Gene Clemons. And Gene, I want to start with you here. The Giants offense in this game. You win 36 minutes, 40 seconds time of possession, 29 first downs, 9 for 11 on third down, 4 for 4 in the red zone. 4.5 yards per carry, 7.5 yards per pass attempt. And Jackson Dart, 23 for 29 passing, 230 yards, 3 touchdowns, no picks. 11 carries, 54 yards. What were your overall thoughts on the offense and Jackson Dart specifically? I thought the offense felt like a John Harbaugh offense. So here's an interesting thing that I've noticed about John. John looks young, but John's not young. Like John's old, right? Like he's older than people would think when they look at him, right? Now, why does that matter? I'm going to tell you, because this offense has a very young feel to it. But it's an old school offense, right? It's just dressed up to look young, but it's old school. That's where the three-headed monster at offensive coordinator comes in at, because that was very much a Greg Roman style of rushing attack. But it had elements of that Kansas City, I won't say trickery, but just those little wrinkles that catch people off guard, right? That the second touchdown from Isaiah Likely, where he comes and slams down like he's going to block, and as soon as the guy tries to escape, he just pivots and posts up right there, almost like a pick and roll, and get him the ball, boom, touchdown. Those small little nuggets like that, it reminded me a lot of what Kansas City was doing in their heyday. Am I saying this offense is going to be Kansas City's offense? No, I'm saying it, those little wrinkles, you could see it in there. An old school feel, we want to be hardcore, we want to be downhill, we want to move bodies with a new school shine on it, like it looks younger than what it really is. And that's a testament to the identity that I was talking about before. I thought it was a well-called game, right? There was no, I was waiting for them to try to quote unquote, take a shot, right? Never came. They didn't have to. Why try to hit home runs when we're just consistently hitting singles and doubles and a couple triples? We don't have to swing for the fences. We're going to have a really good batting average, right? Instead of having the low percentage, I'm going to connect once out of every four or five times that I throw it down the field. How about I just connect four out of five times when I'm going short and intermediate? This is why Darius Slayton is no longer on this team. I'm now understanding it's not necessarily a diss on Darius Slayton. He doesn't fit what they were trying to do. Darius Slayton is not a short to intermediate pass receiver. Darius Slayton, his A-dot is one of the highest in all of football. He is a guy that is very much an intermediate to deep ball catcher. That's not going to fit what they're trying to do. They want to get the ball in the hands of these receivers, allow the chains to keep moving, stay ahead of the chains like Mark was talking about. And essentially kill a defense because we know that first downs are deaf to a defense. If you can't get off the field on third down, you're done. You're done because you saw what happened. They started to wear down. They started going to the backups. The backups are not as good as the starters, obviously. They don't know the game plan as well. They started making mistakes and it ultimately led to more points. This was a fantastic way to start a year and utilize the talent. All of the things that people had questions about, they were all answered in this game. Now, the question becomes, can it be consistent once people now have tape on you? That's where the physicality comes in at. We don't care if you know. We're going to run this thing. It's your job to stop us. Dallas wasn't able to stop us. I mean, to stop it with an all-pro nose guard in there. And they were still able to just move it against what a lot of people would consider to be the weakest part of this Giants offense, which is the center position. Everybody held serve. Everybody played to a certain level. And I think that's to be commended from the coaching staff and what they're doing and how they're spreading the message to those offensive players. Yeah. Mark, I'm curious. I'm curious your take about Jackson Dart as well and the offense overall to this point. Well, I think Jackson played well. He played within the confines of the office. You gotta remember something, guys. You know, John Harbaugh came from Andy Reid, right? He's part of that tree. Matt Nagy, another Andy Reid product. He had Childress and he had Greg Roman. So, he's got really three offensive coordinators basically. And all Jackson had to do was just be a sponge and listen to those offensive coordinators and do what they do. That play, that little fake pick play, whatever they did with the tiny foot of touchdown, that stuff that Matt Nagy did here in Kansas City under Andy Reid, that play is there. But once again, all that stuff comes from running the ball, having that, that running the ball opens up a lot of things if you can run the ball. So Jackson played well. What I was surprised about, I don't know if you guys agree with this, I was surprised that the three or four or five times Jackson ran the ball, those were called plays for him to run the ball. I was surprised that they let him do it. Because you know the history, he had to protect himself. But that's who he is, right? That's what he does. He is an RPO guy. No, he's not in the homes. Because my home is an RPO guy, but Kansas City, they don't want him to run. He's more of a Josh Allen, not that big, but he's part of that offense. They want him to run the ball when they need him to run the ball. He was very effective in running the ball and making the yards. A couple of times he got tackled, going ahead first. I crazed a little bit. But overall, he did everything. First game, he did everything well. He did everything well. Even when he checked out of plays, going kill, kill, we good, we good. It was perfect. He saw what I saw when I watched the game. Okay, he checked out of this play, cool. Loved it. Now, here's what we got to focus on. And I'm not saying he's going to digress because he has to be OCs on his staff. He's smart. He knows what he saw, what he can and can't do, checking in and out of plays. He gets it. I think he'll get better. And that's scary for a lot of defenses in the NFL. He played very well. Never forced anything. Never checked in or out of a bad play. And he relied on his weapons that he had. He did not have to play hero ball tonight. He didn't. He knew, I got my blanket, my case of emergency guy, likely. And I could throw the ball to the neighbors if I wanted to. I could throw the ball to Malachi, take a shot with Malachi. Okay, whatever. Took a shot. But he didn't have to play outside of the confines of what the offense wanted him to do. I thought it was very magical. It was beautiful. Yeah, I mean, he's young, too. Did you want to say Malachi, Tony? Because I'm a Gators fan. I'll get you out of here real quick. Hey, listen, this Malachi, Tony would look really good in some in some. Gene, Gene, tread lightly, tread lightly. Mark and I'll do this show. We'll do this show alone. Real quick. I will also say one thing that I thought was really impressive with this game was Jackson Dart played all 69 snaps and he was out there every every single play. That's not a thing that we've been able to say. Offensive line Jackson Dart all out there for every single play, of course. Then the guys that played the most after that, Malachi Fields with 50 snaps, Cam Scadaboo with 42, Darno Moody with 39, and then Patrick Ricard with 37. Such a heavy pullback presence in the year 2026. And Gene, I'm gonna ask you, I think football is back. I think real deal football is back for the New York Giants. Well, situational football is back because this is, again, I think Mark alluded to it. This is the identity of this team. When we get a two-score lead, you're gonna see our fullback coming at you, right? Like, you're gonna have to handle that. And as long as we keep getting, we keep picking up first downs, as long as we're staying ahead of the chains. We got a fullback for you, BitDog. You don't have to see him every single play. He's coming across the field. How many times does your edge rusher want to take on 300 pounds running like a fullback, a bowling ball slamming into him? That's not what edge rushers want to do. They don't want to do that all day. Especially these past rushing edge rushers now. There's no other type of edge rushers. Or do you listen back? They're all edge rushers now. Like these 30 front defenses. And I think one of the mistakes that the Cowboys made really was they went to a defense that the Giants are really familiar with. That 30 front defense is so in vogue, everyone does it. So when you understand how you want to attack it, it's easy to attack. It's easy to attack as long as you have the elements, which is a 300 pound full back, a 200, a 340 pound ballerina playing right guard. Notice that when they ran the ball heavy, it was to Thomas's side with Maui Noah pulling around. They didn't run a lot to Illuminor's side. You know why? Because that's not Illuminor's strength. He's not the best run blocker of the bunch. Andrew Thomas is a phenomenal run blocker. So let's bring Cece over. Let's double team and use Runyon. Let's use Runyon to help double team with the center. We pull Maui Noah around into the gap, and then we let the 300 pound fullback lead the way. That is intimidating because you can't see a 5'6, 5'8, if we're being nice on the day. You can't see Cam Scadabow sitting behind 650 pounds of humanity running right at you. You just saw me just kept popping out of little areas. It was beautiful to watch. The center pulled three or four times too. The center pulled. That's what Baltimore did a lot down there with- With Lindenbaum. Lindenbaum. Yeah. They pulled them three or four times. That was great. Here's to put a semi ball on this. When the Giants got the ball with five minutes and 23 seconds in the game, usually, and I'm going to talk about last year, because last year's team would go three and out and get the ball back to the other team with three minutes and some left. The Cowboys did not touch the ball. You got to know how to close teams out, and you close teams out by running the f'n ball. And the Giants are going, OK, it's five minutes, twenty-three seconds after the game. There's no way in hell the Cowboys are going to touch this ball again. And that's what happened. You mix, they mix run, run, run, back in the flat, first down, run, run, run, back in the flat, kneel, kneel, kneel, the game's over. That is what I say when a coach knows how to close out a game. Even if it's eight point, two points, whatever, you got to know how to close out a game. I've been on teams where we did that before. I've also been on teams where the coaches and staff did not know how to do it. They tried to build on the defense. Well, okay, defense, you got to close it out. No. When you have the control of the game and know how to close out a game, close out the damn game. That's what we saw tonight. We didn't see that last year. It was frustrating. I played for the Chiefs and Giants and other teams. When we won, when you got to coach the staff that knows how to close out a game, you know this, you got to know how to close out a game. You got to close them out. That was a beautiful thing to see that I haven't seen with the Giants in a long time. Yeah. It was also, I'm going to say, nice to see how Jackson Dark got involved with that where I know, I know it wasn't a very successful run, but there was the face mask that ended up making it a very successful play on that last drive of just the keeper there. And again, run itself didn't pick up a ton, but one, it will at times. And two, I mean, the face mask helped you out a ton there. We are going to talk about the defense, which we have not talked about. Usually, a pretty good thing to not have to talk about them much when we get back with this New York Giants squad show. What's going on, everybody? My name is Ross Jackson, host of the Locked On at Saints podcast. 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Welcome back to the New York Giants squad show. I am Brandon Olsen joined by Mark Collins and Gene Clemons. And we get to talk about a win. Gene, you know what? You might be the lucky charm now because I think you've been on two or three of these. And even though they were preseason, haven't lost in any of those. Yeah, defense has played well in them too, I'm just going to say. Yeah, either you're the good luck charm or Jay Berman was the bad luck charm last year. Well, I'm going to tell you what it is. I'll tell you what it is because, you know, I'm the person, I'm the one that believed in Deontay Banks. Oh, I agree. I'm the one. I'm the one. If you go check the record, I'm starting it right now. And when I get to, you know, a giant issue podcast, we'll talk about it more. But I said, hey, this guy has been playing out of, like he's been playing the wrong type of football for the last couple of years. You know, and in my opinion, if we wanted to talk about anything with the previous regime, the worst decision was the hiring or the firing, whatever, the separation of Wink and then bringing in a coordinator who had an idea for a defense that didn't fit the personnel that he had. And you could see it immediately. What do we see Deontay Banks doing almost all night? Up in their grill. He wasn't up in the grill of like some random, like, you know what I'm saying, 300 yard receivers. He was up in the grill of all pro seeding lamb and 1400 yards, double digit touchdown George Pickens. Like, he was in their grill. Why? Because that's the way he plays. He plays aggressive, he plays physical. And the one thing that this new regime did was, hey, let's let these guys who do stuff naturally, just do what they naturally do. Instead of trying to fit the square peg in the round hole. Where do we see a lot of Tyler Newbon at tonight? In the, at the second level. Why? Because he's just much better at the second level than he is at the third level. So we keep, are we going to keep trying to make him a hash safety when if you go and look at him at Minnesota, you see that he made all his plays at the second level? No, let's let him play where he's good at. Hey, we don't need to see Abdul Carter line up as a three technique. Why? Because he's 240 pounds. Like what are we putting them in there for to get beat up? Put them on the edge. Let them just run around and wreak havoc because that's what he does best. We saw guys just being allowed to be who they were. Even when it wasn't success, right? They had some times where they were able to move the ball. There was never a time we saw any defender look down. We didn't see any bickering between defenders. We didn't see anybody that looked confused. We just saw people who just said, oh, okay, next play, I'll make that play. I think that's the level of confidence that you get with the new regime when you have trust and confidence in your defensive coordinator to put you in the best position to be successful. When they let you just be you. I was an offensive guy, Mark, so I can't speak to it from a practical standpoint. When I'm talking defensively. But I know that as a coach, when I empower my players to entrust them to do what they do best and say, hey, listen, if you want to play up on that guy, play up on that guy because I trust you to do the job. It changes everything. You're right, Gene. But I will go a little bit more in-depth. When you get to that level, on the pro level, everybody can play. But what you find is there are some players, they cannot play the hot spot, the hot corner, so to speak. I said this last year, and I saw Deontay Banks last year and this year. I said, Deontay is not a left corner, because, and I'm going to tell you, I play left corner. Yeah, it's a difference. You gotta be a dog. It's a difference. You gotta be the dog, because it's like playing third base. 88% of this country, everybody is right handed. And 92, 93%, 95% of the league are right handed quarterbacks, which means when they drop back, they're looking right at you. They're looking at you. They're looking right at you. That's the hot spot. And Deontay Banks couldn't, he's not that alpha guy. And that alpha guy has a bravado about him, that, hey, this is my job. This is my, it's a lot more than I will go into in depth. You gotta own that position. He wasn't ready for that. He's a right corner. And you saw when Wilson took over the defense, and if he figured it out, Deontay, wait till you see, he knows, he knows the position. And he's a defensive back guy. Yeah, he put him at right corner. And you saw him at right corner, flourished. I saw it, and I told Patricia and Jay, I said, I'm gonna call this out. As the first preaches again, Deontay Banks will be starting corner on the right side. And he is, he played well. Because that's what he is. I'm not saying he's a bad player. He's not an alpha. He's not the alpha guy on the left side. It's not a disc. You gotta be it. You can name other corners who play left corner. From Ramsey to Deontay, Everett said Walls, Myself, whatever. You gotta be that dog. Mel Blunt going way back. Lester Hayes. There's a whole different element. But Deontay Banks is a right corner. He played well. Now, everybody else, I think the whole secondary played well. To some, we got a little nicked up at the end, and Hood came in, and Adibo came in. But I digress again. I just think based on this game alone, and I know it's early guys, and I'm not saying the Giants are going to the Super Bowl. Mark Collins just predicted the Giants go to the Super Bowl. Shut up. I did not. I'm just saying, collectively as a group, they play well enough. Can they get better? Guys, absolutely, yes, they can. I think some couple of tweaks got to be done. Some run fits, some run fits cleaned up. Not just that, but even Philips and that nickel part, I'm not sold on that. But overall, they played well enough to win. And I think they played well enough because of what the offense did. So Dallas couldn't expose them as the game progressed. I think it was a closer game. And as some of the starters went out, I think Dak figured out who the Ducks were in the secondary. And that starts to show a little bit. But I think the guys will be good. I like our secondary. I think we'll be better as we move on through the season. Yeah, I think one of the important things also is Dallas had three touchdown drives tonight. All three of them were at certain points extended with defensive penalties. Whether it was DPI or the Jevon Holland unnecessary roughness for slinging them down to the ground. And I feel like that's one of the things where it's an encouraging sign to see that, hey, outside of when you gave them yards, they weren't doing a ton. But at the same time, you hate to see a time where you are giving them yards, especially that lead to points. And Gene, I think it might have been you that mentioned earlier the defensive penalties that, or actually Mark, I think it was you that mentioned that there were some defensive penalties where you were like, I don't really agree with, I think, one of them. I was just curious if you could elaborate on that while we're on the topic of the penalty that extended drives. You're right, Brandon. But see, that could be cleaned up. That could be cleaned up. You could clean penalties up because penalties really happen because whenever you're that close to a receiver and you're putting the owners or the referee to make the call. And when you do that, they're going to make the call. They do. So, you know, you could clean that up. But the Giants in the totality on the back end didn't give up very many big plays. No wild plays, no splash plays. So, you take that, okay, that's a check in the positive. But you know, you could clean up a negative on the pass in the fairs. You could clean that up. And the sportsman like, you could definitely clean that up. Yeah. That's, it's like playing golf. I play golf, right? And you shake a shot. Well, if you hop on that shot, it's going to be, it's going to compound to you playing the next shot bad. So with the Giants on the in the fair stuff, you could clean that up moving on. So I think we'd be talking a little differently if our DBs were giving up, you know, 20, 30-year plays on the outside on a slot. Because if you're giving those up consistently, then you gotta say, well, that's something we can address. Can we clean it up? How are we cleaning it up? Do we have another player who could play better? Then you look at that different story. But the PIs and stuff like that, and the sportsmen, that's stuff you can clean up. Yeah, Mark, you know this. Sometimes a PI is a good play, right? Like, sometimes a PI, like for instance, knew some guy got beat on the play. It was an underthrown ball. He was beat. I'd rather him take the pass interference than give up a touchdown pass. Well, yeah, but if this is, okay, like I'm going to compare college to pros, right? If my college DB corner is getting beat and he grabs him, cool. Fifteen yards, yeah. It's not a spot foul. Exactly. So it's different. But at the pro level, he's got to know, he's got to read that receiver, because the receiver is not running by him. The receiver is trying to make a play. He's got to turn and listen. Look, he didn't. He should know better. Lizard brain, lizard brain right there. He should know better being at that level. Yeah. Cause that's a spot foul. That's why I'm saying you can clean that stuff up. But if I'm in a situation on the pro level, if a guy's running by me for a touchdown and I can grab him and I'm beat, I'm going to grab him because I know it's a spot foul, but it gives up my defense another shot. Another shot, yeah. Of coming up. So it's different. So I know what you're saying, Gene. Yeah. So sometimes it's good. But at that level and that particular play. He should have been able to flip his head around. Yeah, turn his head. Because he saw the receiver coming back to him. Yeah. He's got to turn it up. I get it. I get it. Yeah. I'm just looking at it from the standpoint of if you're in lizard brain, and I had an old coach talk to me about it, lizards don't think, they just do. They're not logical with whatever they're doing, they just do it. And so the whole point is to try to keep your brain out of that panic mode. And I think he got caught in panic mode right there, which is why he just reached up in passing the fear. And like you said, looking at the receiver, seeing that he was turned around, oh, this ball must be under thrown, let me turn around. And now if I do contact them, I have every right to the ball the same way that the receiver does. You're right. You're right. But see, I don't expect that from a guy who had five years plus in the league. If Hood would have did that, cool. Makes sense. Yep. That's a vet. Yeah, he should know better. He should know better. Exactly. So that's someone, you're a ten-year vet, dude. You know this game. If it's a rookie doing that, because I've talked to a lot of college coaches, DB coaches, and I told this guy who was recruiting my son years ago, what do you teach him how to play the ball? He goes, I teach him base to face guard. I said, no, you teach them to make him play on the ball. Make him play on the ball. I understood this logic because it's a spot found in college. But for a guy ten years in the league, that's not what you're supposed to do. Yeah. You turn and look because the receiver is giving you indications that the ball is on the throne. I just also want to say it's an absolute crime that underthrown balls lead to PI. I just want to throw that out there. Well, yeah. I just understand it. I understand. I just hate it. Every time that I see it, I'm like, you're rewarding him for an underthrown ball. You're right. It just irritates the hell out of me to see that. We are going to talk about, well, we'll put a bow on this one, and then we will talk about week two. It's going to be a doozy when we get back with this Giants squad show. A new football season brings some questions. Who makes the playoffs? Is it the Giants, NFC East? The rest of them didn't really look great today. Who wins their division? Who takes home the title? Kalshi, America's number one prediction market platform, lets you trade those predictions in a live market. That live market means that you're trading against peers. 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Start building yours at betterment.com or download the app. Investing involves risk. Performance not guaranteed. Paid client ad. Views may not be representative. See App Store and Google Play reviews. Learn more at betterment.com/ambassadors. Thanks again for making this Giants Squad show your first listen of the day, especially if you're someone that's listening live and it's after midnight. And so technically, technically first listen of the day, something that we didn't talk about at all. To this point, we spent time talking about the secondary, the defensive line, pass rush. We didn't spend a ton of time talking about them. Abdul Carter, three pressures, Havon Zibideau, three pressures, Chauncey Golston, three pressures, Brian Burns, no pressures. Mark, what was your takeaway from the defensive front in this game? I expected more out of them since one of the left tackle was out, but I think collectively, they did well enough. You gotta give Dallas some credit. Old saying is, those guys get a check too. So they played well enough to keep Dak upright, but the pass rush itself was decent. Dak was never hurried, never pressured. I think you throw the whole front seven in, they did well enough to stop the run. They kept Dallas off-kiltered behind the change, I think four or five times. But there wasn't really effective enough to throw Dallas off-kilter, but I think the whole front seven in this totality, played well enough as a group to do well. The one play where, I think, Aries got caught inside on the last touchdown, they gave Dallas the last touchdown. He got caught inside, didn't push out on the back of the flat, on the flare route. That was something that rookies- He got caught up, and that happens. That can be fixed. But overall, I think they did well enough, but not as well as we all expected, like, dominating, like, the 86, 90, 2011 Giants. No, but they were effective enough to win the game. And with that performance, I think it's something to build on. They'll get better once they get, you know, in cahoots to work together. But it was one enough to win. So that was no negative, like, oh, they suck or whatever. No, they didn't want enough. They didn't want enough and they'll get better. Yeah, I agree. I agree. They did. They did enough to win. They bent but didn't break right away. I think the biggest, one of the biggest reasons that the offense was able to do what they did was because the defense didn't just allow the quick strike. Yeah. Right. And so because you don't allow the quick strike, Dallas can't get back in the game, right? They can't answer right quick. When the Giants came out and bled over half the, over half the second, excuse me, the third quarter with their one drive, Dallas had to come back and strike quick because they were down too. The defense didn't allow them to do it. They had to march it and continued it and got helped out with some penalties. But they had to march it. And because of that, they bled the rest of the quarter out. So now all of a sudden we're into the fourth quarter. The Giants have a lead. You about to get this full back, homie, right? Like part of what they were able to do offensively was because the defense didn't just give up the booty, right? Like you remember last year when the Giants would put together a phenomenal drive only to turn around and the defense just give up a big play for a touchdown. I remember specifically the Lions game where that was happening a lot. The Giants would have a good drive and then like two plays later, it was touchdown Detroit. Like that's demoralizing. That's demoralizing as a defense and then that's demoralizing for your offense because they were like, man, all that work we just did erased immediately. And so I think from that standpoint, like Mark said, they played well enough. My biggest issue with the front, with the front, the defensive front, especially the pass rush, I'm tired of hearing about the pressures. You got to get home. Like, you're not getting $100 million to get pressures. You weren't picked as the third overall pick to get pressures. You weren't picked as the fifth overall pick to get pressures. You're supposed to get home. And until they start getting home consistently, not any one of them, I just mean as a unit, they got to get home and the more they get home, the better this team is going to be from it. The interception that that press got through, that was a defensive line interception. They flushed him out the pocket, he ran, and then Kayvon continued to pressure him. He tried to throw the ball away and Holland was able to slide under it. That's a, I call that a defensive line interception, even though I know like defensive backs don't want to hear that, you know. I will ask, the Giants play the LA Rams next week, and Rams did not look good week one. That was of course, I don't know how you guys feel about it. That's one of those games where I kind of just like throw it in the garbage can. That was, it was the Australia game, weird travel, weird, like everything is just different and weird with that. I know I'm a college football guy as well. We see teams go to Ireland every year, and it's always a slop fest, and it's just terrible and nobody looks good in it. It's one of those games where it's not necessarily, hey, there's nothing of value here, but you understand that there are different circumstances as opposed to just playing football out there. We know that the Rams especially were on a late trip into Australia, which was a very, very long trip. And Mark, I feel like you look very skeptical. What are you looking for in this game? I'm going to tell you, because I played in four of them, okay? And they do mean something, right? I mean, it's not about, you know, it's a vacation. I mean, we're going to play a game. What are you going to play a game in Mexico or Australia or in a Walmart parking lot? It means something. You know, that's just how it is. I just think, you know, this Rams team that the Giants were about to play. I was talking to, we were doing our Giants show last week and, you know, Patricia was going, or the Rams were going to be mad and, well, you know what? You don't win games because you're mad and being angry. You still got to play. And that's how it is. The Rams are a good team. You know, Garrett is out. He had knee surgery. But the Rams are still a good team. And the Giants are a good team. No matter what, you know, we always, when I played, the schedule comes out. And Gene, you coached and you know how it is. You played and that list comes out. Well, I always did it. We always did it. We go, okay. That's a win. Win, win. Yeah. We're gonna be tight. We all done it. That's what we do, right? And I'm gonna say this. I think the Giants are sitting pretty good right now coming off this win. And even the fans and some of the other prognosticators are going, well, the Rams are good. They're picking to win the Super Bowl. I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm looking at this Rams game going, based on what I saw the Giants did tonight, the coaching staff and the team, how they played the game, the Giants could beat the Rams. I'm not, I'm going, one of the Rams played in Australia or whatever, I don't care what they played in the Walmart parking lot. And the Giants are going to LA. I think the Rams are worried about the Giants more than the Giants are worried about the Rams. Simply because Miles Garrett is out. Aaron Donnell is not ready to go yet. And the Rams have been exposed on certain things. You could run the ball against the Rams. You could throw the ball against the Rams, for what I saw. And I think the team that the Giants have right now, based on how to play the Cowboys, who have a very, very good team. I think the Giants have a shot against the Rams. As I thought earlier in the season, based on just on schedule, the separation was, now it's much closer. I think the Rams could get got, just on what I saw tonight with the Giants. Yeah, I think that the way that the Giants intend on playing football, gives them a chance against anybody, just at any given point, because I think this is a team where once you get a lead, you're going to be equipped, I'm going to say, to actually hold on to it. Gene, before we wrap up, I would like to get your thoughts, early thoughts on the Rams game next week. I think there's two elements I'm looking at. One, already been alluded to. The Rams defense can be ran on. I don't know how much better it's going to be when you add in, Donald in the middle. I know he's going to make a difference, but I don't know how much of a difference. San Francisco ran for 5.8 yards of carry. I just want you all to, they ran for 5.8 yards of carry. This Giants team, they're going to feel as if they can run the ball. Versus the Rams. The passing game is going to be what it is, because if you can run the ball, you're going to be able to pass it. Boom. The play action works there. Where I'm nervous at is that these receivers are different type of receivers than the Cowboys receivers. The Cowboys receivers are a little bit more flashy, a little bit more diva. These receivers are a little bit more like they're rock and sock and robots. They like the physicality. They like the, you know what I'm saying, the hip. The Pocahontas. Yeah. Yeah. Pocahontas. But even Devontae Adams is a big dude. He's a Pocahontas. So it'll be interesting to see how they play against these receivers. Yeah, they're going to be upset. They should be upset. They played horrible. But the Giants shouldn't care if they're upset. Why should that matter to them? Braid and Fisk inside is going to be a problem, especially if Aaron Donald's next to them. If they can handle those two guys inside and they can run the ball, I think you get a very similar situation to what we saw this week, which is the Giants being able to run the ball, possess the clock, and then make the Rams have to start panicking because they just haven't seen the ball enough. So I'm excited to see if that can happen again. If they can run this, not necessarily run the game playing back, but run the play script, how this thing unfolds. Right? Last year, there were a lot of games where the Giants came out and had really good opening drives, and then everything went bleh after that. Right? If they can continue to have good opening drives that lead to touchdowns, not field goals, and then your defense is able to kind of hold water and make it tough until your offense gets it back, and then runs it down again, the Giants are just going to become annoying to play. And I love that for them. I think that's going to make them even more formidable. Yeah. I think that the Giants are giving all of us much better sign for hope or not even hope, but just I think everybody believes. Yeah. Fun. This is more fun this time. They're going to be physical. They're going to punch people in the mouth. I'll tell you what. We just watched Kyle Ustik go in motion about 4,000 times against the Rams this past weekend. I don't know how much is going to be going in motion, but we're going to be watching Patrick Card hit these guys, and that's going to be a hell of a lot of fun. I am Brandon Olsen. This is Mark Collins, two-time Super Bowl champ and Gene Clemons with New York Giants On That Side of the Giant Issue podcast. This is the New York Giants Squad Show, and we will see you all next time part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team, every day. Hey NFL fans, I'm Brian Peacock, and that is Matt Williamson, host of the NFL Six Pack, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team, every day. NFL Six Pack brings you the latest NFL news and analysis, and breaks down all of the weekly action. A six pack of takes daily on the playoff pushed in the 2025 season, or if your team's in draft mode, yeah, we'll hit that too. All right here every day on the Locked On Podcast Network, the NFL Six Pack. Subscribe on YouTube or everywhere you get your podcasts.