Giants vs. Titans: What to watch in their Week 3 matchup

Remember the Giants, starring Brian Daboll

Brian Daboll is in his ninth different NFL job with eight different organizations this year as offensive coordinator for the Titans. “I’ve faced a lot of former teams before,” he said in Nashville this week.

This, though, will be the first time he faces a team with which he was the head coach. On Sunday, the Giants will host Daboll and Tennessee at MetLife Stadium, a little less than four years after he was named NFL Coach of the Year here and a little more than 10 months after he was fired in the middle of last season.

Daboll downplayed any emotions he will have returning to the stadium he once called his home.

“I have a ton of respect for the people in that organization,” he said. “Very grateful for the opportunity the Mara family and Tisch family gave me. But it’s about the players and getting ready for a game.”

Daboll is not the only one who will have to suppress those natural feelings of facing an opponent he very recently coached. This contest will feature more crisscrossed resumes than most.

Several Titans assistants spent time here under Daboll. Giants quarterbacks coach Brian Callahan was the head coach of the Titans for a year and a half but also was fired in the middle of last season. Giants defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson served in that same job for the Titans the past two seasons.

“Most of the people on the [Titans] staff either I worked with or I know,” Wilson said. “But I knew it was time to move on. I'm happy where I'm at. I love being a Giant and I'm not looking back.”

This will be the first game as a head coach at MetLife Stadium that Robert Saleh experiences since he was fired by the Jets in 2024; he returned last season as defensive coordinator of the 49ers.

And there are of course plenty of players who learned from and remain close to coaches on both sides, not to mention players including Cor’Dale Flott, Wan’Dale Robinson and Daniel Bellinger who were drafted by the Giants but joined Daboll in Tennessee as free agents this offseason.

Giants quarterback Jameis Winston said he will be happy to see Daboll, who was largely responsible for bringing him to the Giants last season, although he wishes it were under slightly different circumstances.

“Unfortunately, Dabes ain't going to be on defense,” Winston joked. “I’ve got to play against the Tennessee Titans' defense. I wish Dabes was on defense. That would probably be an easier path.”

Just Winston, baby

One of the reasons the Giants believe Winston, their new starting quarterback, looked so out of sorts on Monday was that he was running plays from a game plan designed for Jaxson Dart. When Dart left the game with a season-ending knee injury after seven snaps, the Giants were limited in their options.

This week, not so much.

“Now we get a chance to design around Jameis' strengths and what he does,” offensive coordinator Matt Nagy said on Thursday. “That's our job as coaches, to make sure we put those guys in the best position possible and really show Jameis how we can do that for him to help him help us.”

Nagy said that while the specific game plan against the Rams was tailored to Dart, the offense in general is designed to include enough plays for anyone.

“When we first got started, we wanted to be able to be prepared to have multiple styles of offense so if something like this does happen, it doesn't put you in a hole where it changes everything,” Nagy said. “Obviously, Jaxson is a dual-threat quarterback. That's one of his strengths. When you lose him, you lose that part of the playbook. But it's not a massive number to where you can't run an offense.”

No Burns for defense?

For the first time since he arrived here in 2024, the Giants likely will play a game without Brian Burns. The All-Pro linebacker and leader of the defense suffered an ankle injury late in Monday’s loss to the Rams and has not practiced since. John Harbaugh said Burns is “day-to-day” ” and listed him as questionable on the final injury report but added: “We are definitely blessed with depth at that position for sure. If he can't go, then we are very confident in the guys that we have.”

One of those guys is Kayvon Thibodeaux, the former fifth overall pick who has had a limited role on the field through the first two games. After only 59 snaps, which is slightly less than half of the defensive total, Thibodeaux figures to step into Burns’ starting role.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Thibodeaux said. “I’m ready to go ball out and do the best that I can.”

On the other side, linebacker Abdul Carter said the key to replacing Burns is to “not try to do things playing outside the scheme and try to force plays.”

“Just do our job, play hard,” Carter said, “and the plays will come to us.”

Like a good Nabers . . . 

Malik Nabers had been working on creating a connection with Dart after injuries to both that limited them to 68 game snaps and very limited practice opportunities during their first two seasons as teammates. Now he is having to cram for chemistry with someone entirely new: backup quarterback Winston.

The two seemed wildly out of sync with each other on Monday night when Winston targeted Nabers four times, resulting in one completion for a yard and one interception.

If the Giants are going to overcome the loss of Dart, the quarterback and star receiver will need to find comfort and trust in each other. It’s why Nabers spent extra time working with Winston after practices this week in anticipation of their first start together. He said he has found Winston’s passes to be “perfect” and “very soft.”

“Just trying to get a feel for him, see how his ball spins, see where he releases the ball and where he puts the ball at,” Nabers said. “It’s a work in progress. Sudden change. But I’m putting in the extra work with him to see what type of quarterback he is and what he sees.”