Giants get to rave on with Kayvon Thibodeaux
Giants defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux is congratulated by teammates after scoring a touchdown during the first half of an NFL game against the Commanders on Sunday in Landover, Md. Credit: AP/Susan Walsh
LANDOVER, Md.
When Kayvon Thibodeaux came around the edge, stripped the ball away from Taylor Heinicke, spun to his feet and recovered the fumble for a touchdown, all in one graceful motion, the Giants were ecstatic. But they also knew they had to brace for what was coming later.
“When I saw him score, I said: ‘This is going to be a long train ride home,’ ” defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence said with a sigh.
Thibodeaux came to New York in April as a star. His big smile, his quick mind for retorts and exuberant yapping, his flair for hyperbole and promotion, they were all perfectly packaged for the big-city team that called his name with the fifth overall pick. But on Sunday night, he exploded into a supernova, thanks to the most dominant game of his career.
The Giants beat Washington, 20-12, to end a four-game stretch without a win and bolster their playoff hopes significantly, but this contest very likely will be remembered as the night Thibodeaux’s performance finally started to match his oversized personality.
It’s ridiculous and unfair to either of them to compare Thibodeaux to Lawrence Taylor at this point in his career, but the agility and power Thibodeaux combined to make that play certainly was reminiscent of the greatest player in Giants history.
Besides the scoring play, Thibodeaux had 11 other tackles, three for a loss, and was a big part of a defense that withstood two Washington drives inside the Giants’ 10 in the final six minutes without allowing a point. His tackle of a scrambling Heinicke at the Giants’ 1 with 1:03 left in the game was just as significant as the touchdown that gave the Giants a 7-3 lead early in the second quarter. Those two plays at opposite 1-yard lines represented a 14-point swing, and there were plenty of others in between.
Thibodeaux dismissed the idea that there was any pressure on him to break out. In that regard, he was less like L.T. and more like P.T.
Barnum, that is.
“I talk about hearing the pressure and seeing it, but this is just entertainment,” he said. “Seeing people talk about how I ain’t got no sacks and seeing people talk trash, I’m a trash-talker, so for me it’s all fun and games. I never flinched, I never worried, I just knew when the time came, I just had to make the play.”
That it took this big platform — a prime-time game that essentially was for the upper hand in a playoff chase between four teams for two spots — should not have come as a surprise.
“Not a coincidence,” Thibodeaux said of his stats matching the stage on which he played.
Thibodeaux’s day began with a conversation with his mother in which she encouraged him. “She said it was on her to tell me you can do anything you put your mind to,” he said. That parental pep talk was followed by Thibodeaux gathering the team after warm-ups for a pregame speech, a rarity for a rookie. “Something came over me, man, and I called them up,” he said as if it were a religious experience, unsure even of what he had told his teammates. “I felt the fire. I felt the passion.”
But he still had to go on the field and back up all of that bravado bubbling out of him.
He did. And the Giants loved seeing it.
“Not only did he step up and talk about it, he was about it on the field, too,” Saquon Barkley said. “He let his play do the talking, too.”
Said Julian Love: “He was balling. He exudes confidence and this is just going to boost that even more.”
That’s exactly what Lawrence was worried about for that train ride back to New Jersey through the night. It can be hard to sleep with the lights on, and Thibodeaux was sure to illuminate the entire car.
Asked if it will be tough to live with Thibodeaux now, Leonard Williams cracked: “It already is.”
“But he’s a good guy,” Williams quickly added. “We love his excitement and passion for the game. He deserved that big-time play. I’m going to let him know how proud we are of him.”
Thibodeaux might let them know how proud he is of himself, too. That’s part of the package with him.
Earlier in the week, when Thibodeaux was asked if he liked playing in prime time, he responded rather cryptically but confidently: “Prime time likes me.”
Then he went out and consummated that relationship.
“I ain’t lied to you yet,” he said.
It was straight truth from Thibodeaux on Sunday.
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.
