The Giants had a real chance to squeeze points out of the first half in Los Angeles, and instead they walked away with a sequence that was tough to explain.
New York was already an underdog against the Rams, and the task got steeper when Jaxson Dart went down on the opening drive with a left knee injury. Jameis Winston took over, and that should have pushed the Giants even harder toward the kind of physical run game that can help a backup quarterback survive. Instead, when they got inside the Rams’ 10-yard line before halftime, their personnel choices went in the opposite direction.
Cam Skattebo stayed on the sideline for a stretch that didn’t make much sense given the situation. On 2nd-and-5, the Giants gave the ball to Najee Harris.
That call was already questionable with Winston running the offense and the team needing a tough, downhill approach. Then the Rams used a timeout, giving Skattebo even more time to rest, but New York still left him out when it faced 3rd-and-2.
Harris got the ball again.
The result was exactly what the Giants couldn’t afford. The Rams stacked it up at the line of scrimmage, Harris lost yardage, and New York had to settle for a field goal.
That’s what made the sequence so hard to justify. The Giants knew coming in that their rushing attack would matter against Los Angeles, and Skattebo was one of the players they had who could bring that physical edge.
Once Dart was out, the logic for leaning into that style only got stronger. Winston is an experienced quarterback, but he also came in unexpectedly and has a long track record of turnovers, which makes staying on schedule and building around the run even more important.
Instead, one of the biggest red-zone chances of the half featured the bruising back sitting on the sideline for back-to-back short-yardage snaps. There’s always room to argue about which runner should get which carry. But after the Rams burned a timeout, keeping Skattebo off the field on consecutive plays was difficult to understand.
It was especially frustrating because the Giants’ defense had already forced two turnovers and kept them in the game. With Dart sidelined, those chances mattered even more.
The late-first-half decisions didn’t help. They hurt.
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