Oct. 26th, 2025 was probably the worst day for the New York Giants in 11 years.
The Giants’ loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 8 was the kind of emotional blow a team gets once a decade, if that often. It wasn’t just the 38-20 loss on the tail of a 33-32 collapse, but the loss of one of the Giants’ spark plugs in gruesome fashion.
This time it’s rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart trying to pick up the pieces after Cam Skattebo was lost for the season to a brutal dislocated ankle. Last time (Oct. 12, 2014) it was Eli Manning after Victor Cruz lost to a torn patellar tendon.
Dart and Skattebo injected new life into the Giants after each took over the starting job for their respective positions. But more than that, Dart and Skattebo were fast friends and two of a (very rare) kind in the Giants’ backfield. Their attitude and energy was infectious, powering the team and uplifting the fanbase. Now, like Malik Nabers — Skattebo won’t be on the field for the Giants again until 2026.
“I was devastated,” Dart said. “It’s my boy, man, so seeing him go down and obviously reacting to what happened, that sucks. It’s the worst part of this game.”
“It’s emotional,” he added. “But you try to go back in the huddle and try to just reload and just try to go down and score.”
The Giants also lost tight end Daniel Bellinger to a neck injury, forcing Dart to (try to) play without another dependable weapon. But he also took the weight of picking up the slack on himself.
“[I] Just know I got to keep making plays and do my job to put our team in the best situation,” he said. “Obviously it’s not ideal [losing offensive weapons], it stings, and there’s more people in the rotation, but I got to be better, too, making more plays and putting us in a good situation to win.”
The Giants have been ravaged by injuries over the last month, and came into the game without two starting defensive backs (cornerback Paulson Adebo and safety Jevon Holland), and also lost cornerback Cor’Dale Flott to a concussion in addition to the losses of Skattebo and Bellinger. But even so, Dart isn’t blaming the injuries for the Giants’ loss.
“I’m not ever going to quit,” he said. “I don’t care what the situation is. If I’m on that field, I’m playing as hard as I can. I’m going to try to lead the best that I can. I have the same expectation every time we go out on the field and try to preach that to the guys so when we step through the lines, we should be competing and playing as hard as we can every time.”
Instead, he says that the Eagles simply out-played the Giants and dominated them.
“I felt like, honestly, I felt like we kind of got, I’m trying to say this the right way”, he said. “I thought they did just a lot more things better than we did in a lot of areas. I don’t like the feeling of – I thought they really kind of dominated most of the game and it’s an embarrassing feeling.”
That said, the rookie also believes that the embarrassment should motivate the team.
“That’s just kind of how I feel,” he added. “It’s frustrating because I felt confident coming into this game. I felt obviously extra motivated because of how things happened last week and I really didn’t want one to lead to another. I’m just disappointed that we lost.”
“I mean, hopefully it just motivates everybody more throughout the whole facility” Dart said. “It’s not just the players, it’s not just the coaches, it’s everybody. I hope everybody can be more and more motivated to get better, to try to take another step in [our] preparation and how [we] lead. That goes for me, too. I have to take accountability because I need to be way better. Fair or unfair, a quarterback is judged by [their] wins and losses. We got to bounce back and I feel confident in the guys and that’s what we’re going to do.”
The hurt will fade with time, but right now the wounds of losing the game — and his friend — are still raw. But Dart promises that he’s going to use the twin losses to motivate him to be better.
“This is all fresh, so I’m still going to be frustrated tomorrow about it,” Dart said. “But like I said, I hope it’s just motivating for everybody. It’s going to be motivating for me to be better and I mean, the overall feeling is I hate losing and everybody here hates losing and we got to figure out how to start winning.”
