Tom Rock: Giants' Cam Skattebo, Jaxson Dart want to be more than spectators at Super Bowl
Giants' Cam Skattebo, left, and Jaxson Dart on Friday in San Francisco. Credit: Tom Rock
SAN FRANCISCO — Cam Skattebo is the kind of guy who pretty much has fun wherever he goes.
This week at the Super Bowl is an exception.
“It sucks, to be honest,” he told Newsday.
The weather is fine and the parties are plentiful and the golf courses are wide open . . . so what’s not to like?
That he is on the outside looking in. That he gets to “enjoy” the weather and parties and golf and isn’t preparing to play. This is his second time visiting the event as a pitchman; he attended last year’s when he was coming out of college. Coming back as a player is what he wants.
“We came up short,” he said. “Very short. And that’s not going to happen again.”
Jaxson Dart agreed. This is his first time visiting a Super Bowl and soaking up the atmosphere surrounding the game.
Cam Skattebo and Chloe Rodriguez attends The New Heights Party with Jason & Travis Kelce on Feb. 4, 2026 in San Francisco. Credit: Getty Images for Wondery/Michael Loccisano
“It’s been tough to watch these playoffs and not be a part of it,” he told Newsday, sitting next to Skattebo.
The two were on Radio Row Friday wearing matching green varsity sweaters talking about how great paper towels are for cleaning up while eating chicken wings. It wasn’t the ever-present smell of the Buffalo sauce that made them hungry, though. It was the hankering they have to get back to work. To one day get back to a Super Bowl in uniforms, not in goofy costumes that made then look like they sing in a doo-wop group rather than play football.
“This is the first year of our careers where we experienced losing adversity like this, especially at this level,” Dart said. “Moving forward we are excited to grow from those experiences. From a team aspect, I think we are all just itching to get back rolling. There is a lot of excitement.”
In the meantime, the two young Giants spent some of this Super Bowl experience scouting their newest coaches. They already know a lot about John Harbaugh and have had plenty of conversations with him directly.
“Coach Harbs, we had conversations before he even had the job and he's just somebody who instills a relentless mindset from an organization and team standpoint," Dart said. “I think as a competitor that's exactly what you want to be in. He has a ton of respect from everybody that's been around him league-wide. He's a coach that you can really look up to as a man of faith and just as a man in general of who he is as an individual and leader of men. I can't want to get at it."
Recently-hired offensive coordinator Matt Nagy was a little less familiar to them, though. For the skinny on Nagy they turned to Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce.
Dart spoke to Kelce at NFL Honors on Thursday night and said he gushed over how much “love and respect” he has for him. Skattebo had met with Kelce up the day before.
“He is very high on Nagy,” the running back said. “He told me: ‘You are going to love him.’ So I’ve heard good things about him and I’m excited to play for him.”
Veteran linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux, in town to take part in the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate Unity Summit on Friday, said he hasn’t yet spoken to Harbaugh but many players have approached him in the last few days here to talk about the coach. Thibodeaux is excited because the first game he remembers watching was the Super Bowl that Harbaugh’s Ravens won 13 years ago.
“To find out that we’re getting the head coach from that game was kind of dope to me,” he said.
He also likes that Harbaugh brings an “old-school” mentality to the Giants.
“It’s like when you get past a certain age you don’t have to sugar-coat what you say, you’re just straight-forward,” Thibodeaux said. “You see a lot of different cultures, different people, who want to change their ways for the new generation or fit in or whatever. But for me I like old-school coaches because they take no [bullshit], it’s black and white, you know what you are going to get every day, and I think with a lot of the young guys we have it’ll be good to get that in order.”
Thibodeaux did speak with new defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson.
“We have a great opportunity on defense, we have a lot of pieces, and I am excited from the brief conversation we did have about how he is going to utilize his assets,” Thibodeaux said. “We’re going to mix things up and play aggressive.”
The last few weeks have brought a lot of those good vibes for the Giants. Harbaugh was hired last month and he has been assembling his staff. The Giants are a buzz-worthy team around the league because of their new coaches and the talent they have on their roster. It has allowed them to not only dream about but expect to be competitive in 2026, to not sound ridiculous thinking about the lofty possibilities that are ahead.
As Harbaugh said at his introductory news conference: “We're here with one mission, to earn the right to be called the world champions in New York.”
But until either the Patriots or the Seahawks raise this year’s trophy on Sunday, it can’t yet officially be next season.
"I think the biggest lesson I learned was just patience and just being able to weather storms of adversity," Dart said of his rookie season.
So they wait. The lesson in patience will last just a little while longer. On Monday, everyone is 0-0.
Then the wait will be until early April when the offseason program begins. And the minicamps throughout the spring. And training camp in the summer. Finally, it’ll be September and the regular season will start.
And next February, when the Super Bowl is in Los Angeles, where will Dart and Skattebo be then?
They know where they want to be.
Maybe they’ll even get to finally enjoy one.
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.
