PHILADELPHIA — Wan’Dale Robinson and Tyrone Tracy both dropped to a knee and prayed. Darius Slayton just looked away, unable to even glance at Cam Skattebo sitting on the field, his dislocated right ankle bent awkwardly.
Skattebo’s gruesome injury, suffered midway through the second quarter of Sunday’s 38-20 loss at the Eagles, is another crushing blow to the Giants — on top of No. 1 wide receiver Malik Nabers already being out for the year with a torn ACL.
So as Skattebo prepares for surgery Sunday night at a Philadelphia hospital, what happens now for hot-seat coach Brian Daboll and his prized rookie quarterback, Jaxson Dart, who clearly has the chops to thrive in the NFL?
Well, the 2-6 Giants — who are 5-20 since last season began and 3-17 in their past 20 games — obviously will miss the playoffs again. That much is obvious. The final nine games of this season are all about Dart’s development — and determining if Daboll is the right guy to mentor this kid in 2026 and maybe beyond.
As Giants ownership tries to get a full and fair evaluation of Dart — plus Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen — how will the injuries to Skattebo and Nabers impact that process? Does Dart have enough pieces around him? Or will ownership green-light a trade for a playmaker who can help Dart (which surely would be a move geared not just toward this season)?
Those big-picture questions loom after this second straight Giants loss, as they fell to 11-31 over the past two-plus seasons, with 10 consecutive road defeats, including 0-5 away from home this season.
To a large extent, the rest of this year is less about winning and more about what the Giants can get from Dart, especially with a depleted group of weapons. Still, Daboll desperately needs to win at least some games if he wants to keep his job.
The past two years, he didn’t get his third victory until after he opened 2-13 and 2-8, which cranked up the pressure on him heading into 2025.
Dart and Skattebo were supposed to change all that this season — a fearless, defiant rookie duo that seemed plenty capable, along with Nabers, of boosting Daboll’s sluggish offense. But then Nabers went down in Dart’s first start and Skattebo got hurt in his fifth game, as the kid quarterback dropped to 2-3 (0-3 on the road).
The Giants trailed just 14-7 when Skattebo was carted off — with an injury that everyone immediately knew would end his promising first season. Then the Eagles went on a 24-6 scoring surge to put the game away, as the Giants could not deliver on Skattebo’s pleas from the cart for them to rally in his absence.
“Let’s f---ing go!” Skattebo shouted to teammates before he left the field. “Let’s do this!”
Skattebo’s replacement, Tyrone Tracy, heard those words — if only because it’s impossible to not hear Skattebo. So Tracy knows the Giants will miss Skattebo’s devil-may-care demeanor and relentless rushing style.
“His energy is infectious,” Tracy said. “We had a good duo going.”
Said slot receiver Wan’Dale Robinson: “We lose a little bit of a spark that we always get from him, just the way he runs and the way he finishes runs.”
Skattebo’s value alone made his injury so jarring. The way it happened did, too, as his foot got caught in the grass — and under Zack Baun — after Skattebo jumped while trying to grab a pass from Dart over the middle. With one twist, his season was done.
“When you see somebody go down like that, their dreams got snatched away — for at least a period of time,” receiver Darius Slayton said. “So it’s hard to watch. I just saw the way his foot was positioned, and I looked away, because I don’t like to look at things like that for very long.”
Robinson approached Skattebo on the cart and told him, “We got your back. Love you.” By that point, Robinson was already amazed that Skattebo, moments earlier, had tried to get up and continue playing despite sustaining this insane injury.
“It looked like he was still trying to go,” Robinson said. “But it was like, ‘Nah, brother, your foot is turned the other way right now.’”
So now it’s Tracy and Devin Singletary in the backfield, with Slayton and Robinson at receiver and Theo Johnson and Daniel Bellinger forming the tight end tandem. Will that be enough for Dart? And, by extension, will it be enough for Daboll and Schoen?
While Daboll won’t ask Dart to do it all alone in the final nine games, it’s worth noting that Daboll has not restricted Dart through these first five starts. He has given Dart the opportunity — which he seized — to show he can take on the full scope of an NFL offense. Daboll hasn’t held Dart back, hasn’t made him mostly hand off.
“He’s not scared to push it down the field,” Slayton said.
That is why Slayton still feels hopeful about an offense that lacks Skattebo and Nabers, even if that unit gained just 246 yards Sunday and managed 13 points before a meaningless touchdown cut the margin to 38-20 with 2:44 left.
“I wouldn’t say it makes it tough,” Slayton said of Skattebo’s injury. “We believe ourselves plenty capable to go out there and help this team win games. When it comes time to play, you can’t cry over who you don’t have. You have to go into battle with who you do have.”
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