The Giants are walking into Week 1 with a real opening on the other side of the ball, and it’s one they can’t afford to let slip by.
Dallas is expected to be without Tyler Smith for four to six weeks after thumb surgery, which pushes T.J. Bass into the left guard spot. Bass has 10 career starts, including five last season, and now he’s being asked to handle a big divisional assignment right out of the gate on Sunday night.
That’s exactly the kind of setup the Giants should be eager to test. Brian Burns, Abdul Carter, and Kayvon Thibodeaux give New York enough speed and length up front to make life miserable for any protection plan that isn’t fully settled.
They don’t need to get cute to create pressure. They just need to keep poking at the weak point until it cracks.
The key is not assuming the injury automatically turns into a win. Dallas can still cover for Bass with scheme, extra help, and a quick passing game. So the Giants’ job is to keep changing the picture - movement, late pressure, different bodies, the whole menu - and make the Cowboys adjust what they want to call.
That approach can do more than produce hits on the quarterback. It can shrink the field for the offense before it settles in, and it can also put the Giants in the kind of down-and-distance situations their defense should want to live in.
Week 1 usually comes down to which team handles the surprise problem better. Dallas already has one on the interior of its line, and the Giants have the personnel to turn it into a real advantage. Now they have to make it count on the field.
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