Giants' Cam Skattebo, Jaxson Dart and Abdul Carter deserve a break
The Giants' Cam Skattebo, Abdul Carter and Jaxson Dart. Credit: Ed Murray; Jim McIsaac; AP/Peter Joneleit
Building things up and tearing them down is what we do here in New York.
It goes for everything from architecture to trends to culture to, yes, athletes.
Usually there is at least a little bit of staying power once things or people are hoisted up toward the top. They at least get to enjoy the view for a few moments of glory. We touted Dexter Lawrence as the best defensive tackle in the league for almost two years before shredding him as his production sagged this season.
In just the span of a few weeks, though, Jaxson Dart, Cam Skattebo and Abdul Carter of the Giants have experienced the full cycle of this tradition.
Barely a month ago, they were kings of this town, sitting courtside at Knicks games and having kids dress up like them for Halloween. Then it felt as if we collectively decided to turn the dial on them from heroes to heels, princes to punks.
This week in particular has been rough for all three of them.
Dart, who has been in the NFL’s concussion protocol, has had to spend that time being lectured vicariously by the great masses about his playing style and whether his propensity to strive for extra yardage while running with the football is so reckless that it will turn him into mashed potatoes.
Skattebo, still in the early stages of recovering from a dislocated ankle and sporting a walking boot, appeared at a WWE event in which he interacted with some of the pro wrestlers in the middle of a staged shoving match. The WebMD-educated sports world cringed that he might do more damage to the ankle.
And Carter? He missed a walk-through last week and had to sit out the first possession of the game against the Packers before coming back to play every remaining snap. There were reports that he was asleep, which he vehemently denies, but that doesn’t matter. For the rest of his career, he’ll be known more for dozing than bulldozing blockers.
Pretty stormy days for this trio of young Giants. Each has been put through the media wringer. It’s a rite of passage, even if it usually happens a bit later.
But give the kids a break. They’ll figure it out.
If they are going to grow into the foundational pieces the Giants want them to be — the ones we all thought they would be just a few short games ago — they need to gather a bunch of experiences. These are now chief among them.
Dart has been hearing the same advice for most of his life, with folks telling him to slide rather than try to take on linebackers. Before this, though, it never cost him time on the field. Maybe he needed this incident to have those words sink in. He’s touched the stove, it’s definitely hot. And now that he has seen that missing plays can be very detrimental to the team — the Giants probably would have won, or at least had a much better chance of winning, their past two games had he been available for them throughout — perhaps he will be more cautious on his own accord.
He certainly would not be the first quarterback to go through such a change in thinking. When he played the Jets in Foxborough last year, rookie Drake Maye took a hit to the head that created a New England firestorm about the perils of leaving the pocket. He returned from his concussion and tore up those same Jets last week for an eighth straight victory.
Skattebo played football like a pro wrestler, so no one should be surprised that he pro wrestled like a football player. There was never a chance that he would spend his convalescence sitting home, patiently waiting for his injury to heal up. Of all the things he could have been doing in his time away from the facility, standing behind a barrier and engaging in a scripted stunt would seem to be among the safer options.
With Carter at least, his missing of the walk-through is a universal no-no. But he’s not the first player to make that kind of a mistake. When Andrew Thomas was a rookie in 2020, he was benched for a quarter because he missed a team meeting.
“It’s just a rookie mistake,” Thomas said of his transgression, as well as Carter’s most recent one.
Thomas has developed into the most steady and stabilizing player in the Giants’ locker room. If Carter can approach anything close to that, this blip will be forgotten quickly.
“Obviously accountability,” Thomas said of what he learned from his run-in with then-head coach Joe Judge. “And then you’re just making sure that that never happens again.”
Perhaps this was the wake-up call — literally and figuratively — that Carter needs for his production to begin matching his potential.
If the Giants were winning, most of this wouldn’t really matter. It would get swept away. Having a 2-9 record has perils, and people paying attention to things other than the actual football late in the season is one of the big ones. And the high profiles that the three rookies built for themselves early in their time here certainly put them in the crosshairs for scrutiny.
The spotlight can bite.
It was good to see that the players bit back a bit too. None of them needs to be defended here.
Skattebo went to social media to stiff-arm his haters. Carter did the same, and while he easily could have portrayed himself as a victim smeared by the reporting he refuted, he kept the blame on himself while arguing the details. Dart will get a chance to give his reply when he returns to the field, perhaps as soon as Sunday.
But it’s already been a whirlwind few months for these guys. They’ve seen quite a bit already. This week they were dragged around pretty good. Enough of that.
Give them a chance to get back up, New York. Let them find their footing here. They’ve been thrust into leading roles in this play, one that is completely new to them that we’ve been watching for decades. Let them blossom a bit before crushing them and moving on to the next demolition.
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.
