Five Good Questions with Big Blue View

We’re just a couple of days away from the final road game of the year for the Minnesota Vikings, and that means it’s time to sit down and gather some intel from the team’s opponent for this week.

On Sunday, the team will be traveling to take on the New York Football Giants, who are actually the New Jersey Football Giants, but. . .you know, it’s a whole thing. Yours truly got the chance to exchange some questions with Ed Valentine, the lead writer from Big Blue View, SB Nation’s home for everything about Giants’ football. Ed has been doing this for as long as I have, so this isn’t the first time we’ve done this sort of thing.

Once Ed posts the answers to the questions he sent me over on BBV, I’ll link to them here in this post. For now, here are the questions I sent his way and his answers.

1) If the season ended today, the Giants would hold the #1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Do you think the Giants have seen enough from Jaxson Dart to this point where they still see him as the long-term answer at quarterback or do you think they would take a quarterback early in 2026 in that scenario?

Quite honestly, I think quarterback is off the table. Dart has been really good without a lot of help. He has the leadership and the personality to handle New York, and the play-making ability to be a star if he gets the right coach and some more help. 

If Joe Schoen remains GM, I think there is no chance the Giants move on from Dart. Even if the Giants change the coach and GM, I believe one of the job pre-requisites is going to be signing off on building around Dart. Not moving on from him. 

And, let me be clear, I 100% think that is the right approach.

2) Speaking of Dart, a lot of the conversation around him this season has centered around the concussion issue. As someone who covers the Giants, how much of a concern is that to you and the rest of the fan base?

I keep saying this, but I think the narrative and all of the attention it has received has gotten way out of hand. Dart has had ONE concussion. He has been tested four other times. The last one, Sunday against Washington, was ridiculous. He didn’t even get hit in the head.

I think the attention his aggressive playing style has received, and the fact that he keeps getting tested, ends up being a force multiplier. It just draws more and more attention, and makes the officials and the spotters overly sensitive.

The kid is 22. He will learn, and is learning, more about when and how to protect himself and when it is OK to take a risk. The Giants drafted this kid because he is a Ferrari and that aggression and desire to be a playmaker is what can make him special. They can’t take that away from him.

3) A few years ago, Brian Daboll and the Giants were knocking Kevin O’Connell and the Vikings out of the NFC playoffs at U.S. Bank Stadium. How did the wheels completely come off for Daboll after that to the point where the Giants fired him a month ago?

I could spend, and at Big Blue View probably have spent, thousands of words detailing the answer to that question. Let me try to boil it down.

After that 2022 season, mistakes were made. The Giants overachieved and still had a lot of rebuilding to do, but they acted like they were already built and made some short-term, short-sighted, moves.

Fast forward to 2023 and, after paying Daniel Jones, they completely abandoned the play style that made him successful in 2022 — and this year in Indianapolis. Instead of a play-action passer and distributor, they tried to make him a drop back passer and focal point of the offense. Daboll tried to make him Josh Allen. Which he’s not.

There have been too many draft picks who underachieved. The big debate is whether that was on Daboll and his coaching staff, or if players were improperly evaluated.

Daboll also allowed the Giants to lapse into a stage where players weren’t held accountable, and there weren’t any standards.

Finally, the hiring of Shane Bowen as defensive coordinator and Daboll’s insistence on sticking with him when it was long ago obvious it wasn’t going to work, was a disaster. The defense is terrible, despite the fact that it has enough talent to be much better than it is.

4) The Giants have lost eight straight coming into this one. I can’t stand a lot of the discourse around “tanking” when it comes to the NFL, but as someone who watches the team every week, do the Giants strike you as a team that’s still playing hard, or have they pretty much packed it in for 2025?

They are playing hard. Or, as hard as they can. They just are not playing well. Especially on the defensive side of the ball, even with Bowen out and Charlie Mullen now running the defense.

Interim coach Mike Kafka is fighting for his future, and doing the best he can. There is no Malik Nabers. No Cam Skattebo. Kayvon Thibodeaux has missed the last four games. Abdul Carter has underachieved. So has Dexter Lawrence. The Giants have not gotten what they paid for when they signed Paulson Adebo and Jevon Holland. The special teams are a mess.

5) Give us one player on each side of the ball that Vikings fans might not know about but has stood out this year for the Giants during this 2025 season. 

On offense, I guess I will give you tight end Theo Johnson. A 2024 fourth-round pick, he is developing into a really nice player. He’s 6-foot-6, 264 pounds with terrific athleticism, but some inconsistency. On defense, cornerback Cor’Dale Flott is a fourth-year player who is still only 24, and has really come into his own this year.

Thanks again to Ed for taking the time to sit down and answer our questions for this week!