Kayvon Thibodeaux finally got his homecoming under the lights Monday night, and it came with all the little things that make a game in Los Angeles feel personal.
For the first time in his NFL career, the Giants edge rusher played a regular-season game in the city where he grew up, as New York faced the L.A. Rams at SoFi Stadium. Thibodeaux, a South Central Los Angeles product, had to wait until his fifth season in the league to do it.
“Playing in L.A. is super special,” Thibodeaux, 25, said before making the cross-country flight. “Growing up in the city of L.A. and being a kid who dreamed about playing in the NFL, and now after five years of being in the NFL being able to get back to the West and play a game, it’s super special.”
The stadium in Inglewood sits just 6.5 miles south of Susan Miller Dorsey Senior High School, where Thibodeaux played for two years before transferring to Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village. That geography helped turn Monday into a family event as much as a football one.
Thibodeaux said Friday he had already bought about 20 tickets himself, with more relatives getting their own seats.
“I just bought about 20 tickets,” Thibodeaux said Friday. “And I know a lot of family already got tickets. So it’ll be maybe around 30 or 40 people.”
Because the Giants traveled out on Saturday, two days before kickoff, Thibodeaux also had a little more time than usual to be around the people who know him best.
“It’ll be chill,” he said of their plans. “We’ll probably just have a get-together, have my aunt and grandma cook some food and just hang out.”
He was looking forward to the food, too, especially the kind that tastes like home.
“My mom makes some crazy tacos,” Thibodeaux said. “Being from LA, it’s this huge kind Spanish influence. So she makes some steak tacos I’m excited for.”
The timing of the trip home also fit neatly with where Thibodeaux is in the Giants’ new defense. He’s still trying to settle into a role that looks very different from the one he has known.
In Week 1, Thibodeaux played just 27 snaps, or 47% of New York’s defensive total, in the win over the Dallas Cowboys. Defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson used him in seven different spots, moving him across the front from left to right.
His usage has changed dramatically. Wilson even showed him briefly at inside linebacker during one spring practice. Thibodeaux has also taken plenty of one-on-one pass-rush snaps at defensive tackle on the inside, even though his natural position is on the edge.
That shift has opened the door for Abdul Carter, who played 91% of the Week 1 snaps and is now set on the edge opposite Brian Burns, a role Thibodeaux once occupied. Thibodeaux is now the flexible piece, the same sort of Swiss Army knife the Giants used Carter as during his rookie season.
Thibodeaux has taken it in stride and said he’s doing what he can within the new setup.
“I gotta show up on the stat sheet and stop the run,” he said of the need to produce. He said stopping the run is where it all starts, and that’s his priority every play.
His long-term future with the Giants remains unsettled, too. He is in the final year of his rookie deal on a fifth-year option, and his name has kept surfacing in trade talk.
With his role reduced, the possibilities are clear: he could earn a new contract in New York, or he could be elsewhere next season - or even before then, if the midseason trade deadline brings a move.
Still, Thibodeaux isn’t looking that far ahead. Even with limited work in Week 1, he made his presence felt on the play that helped swing the game against Dallas. His pressure on Dak Prescott forced the quarterback’s interception to safety Jevon Holland, a sequence that helped seal the win.
Thibodeaux wasn’t interested in taking much credit.
“I’ve been chasing people down my whole life,” Thibodeaux said. “So no, I don’t give myself credit for that.”
And for one night in Los Angeles, the return home may have been exactly what he needed while he keeps carving out his place in a defense still taking shape.
The Giants’ offensive line had its own message coming out of the opener, too, and it was all about finishing.
Rookie right guard Francis “Sisi” Mauigoa was seen finishing a couple of plays far downfield against Dallas, and the whole line played with an edge. On a few occasions, Mauigoa even made contact with Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo at the end of plays because he was so determined to keep driving.
Offensive line coach Mike Bloomgren said that kind of attitude is exactly what the group has been building toward.
“We talk all the time about convoy. We’ve talked in the offensive line room about having a Mafia mindset, and that is making sure we finish for each other,” Bloomgren said.
“When you talk to guys that used to be in the Mafia and are out now, I guess, supposedly the thing they always miss is the camaraderie. They miss the locker room type feel.
“And we’ve got that,” Bloomgren said. “And they miss the love for each other.
We’ve got that love for each other. So we’re gonna finish every play for each other.”
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