Giants 2025 Season in Review

Nine rushing touchdowns from a rookie quarterback — Jaxson Dart finished twelfth in the entire league in rushing scores, more than most starting running backs. That's the headline buried inside a four-and-thirteen season. Here's how the Giants quietly built a top-five rushing attack, why the defense couldn't get off the field on the ground, and the one rookie number that frames everything. Four wins, thirteen losses, last in the NFC East, no playoffs. The Giants got muffed in the standings — but the tape underneath is more interesting than the record.

Start with the team by the numbers. Offensively, the Giants finished plus thirteen point three in total expected points added — how much their snaps improved scoring chances versus an average offense — ranking seventeenth. League median. The defense is where it falls apart: plus ninety point two expected points added allowed, and on defense you want that number negative. Bottom eight in football. Takeaways told the same story — fifteen all year, nine interceptions and six fumble recoveries, twenty-fifth. And this was a boom-or-bust roster top to bottom. They lost by one in Denver in Week 7, smashed the Eagles thirty-four to seventeen in Week 6, then got run off the field in New England fifteen to thirty-three in Week 13. Same team, wildly different versions, week to week.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. The Giants threw for two hundred seventeen point eight yards per game with a passing expected points added of minus four point six — league average output, nineteenth, forty-fourth percentile. The bigger problem was protection: forty-eight sacks allowed on six hundred twenty-seven dropbacks, a seven point seven percent sack rate that lands in the worst third of the league. The story under center was the rookie. Jaxson Dart started fourteen games, threw for two thousand two hundred seventy-two yards, fifteen touchdowns, five interceptions, and completed sixty-three point seven percent against an expected sixty-five point eight — minus two versus expectation, twenty-seventh among qualified starters. Rough on accuracy, but the flashes were real. Week 7 in Denver, third and seventeen in the fourth quarter, Dart hit Theo Johnson on a short middle route that turned into a forty-one yard touchdown — twenty-nine yards after the catch, a plus six point oh four expected points swing on a single snap. That's the rookie ceiling. The floor was the twenty-seventh-ranked accuracy. Both showed up, often in the same game.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. Two thousand one hundred ninety-seven rushing yards, four point three per carry, and a rushing expected points added of plus fourteen point six — fifth in the league, eighty-eighth percentile. Top-five run game. The catch: it was a true committee by necessity. Rookie Cam Skattebo, the most explosive ground signal on the roster, played only eight games before going down — one hundred one carries, four hundred ten yards, five touchdowns, plus forty-three rush yards over expected. Once he was out, Tyrone Tracy carried the volume and Devin Singletary handled the goal line. But the real engine was Dart's legs. Eighty-six carries, four hundred eighty-seven yards, nine rushing touchdowns from the quarterback. That's what dragged a committee backfield into a top-five run unit.

Next up, the pass defense. The Giants allowed two hundred twenty-nine point nine passing yards per game and a passing expected points added allowed of plus sixteen point four — and remember on defense you want that number negative. Fifty-third percentile. Right in the middle. They generated thirty-nine sacks, fifteenth in the league, fifty-sixth percentile — decent. The real wound was takeaways: just nine interceptions all season, boom-or-bust ball production. When the secondary did create a moment, it was massive. Week 6 against the Eagles, leading twenty-seven to seventeen in the fourth quarter, Cor'Dale Flott jumped a Jalen Hurts pass in the red zone and took it sixty-eight yards the other way — minus eight point eight five expected points for Philadelphia, snuffing out a touchdown drive and icing the game. That play is the season in miniature. Capable of elite moments, just not nearly enough of them.

And the run defense. This is where the Giants got absolutely muffed. Two thousand four hundred ninety-five rushing yards allowed across seventeen games — one hundred forty-six point eight per game — and a rushing expected points added allowed of plus seventy-three point eight. On a defense, that's catastrophic. Third percentile. Basically the worst run defense in football. They gave up zero point one seven expected points per carry, meaning every single handoff against them, on average, moved the offense forward. Twenty-one rushing touchdowns allowed. No individual to single out, because the failure was collective — gap discipline, tackling, second-level fits, all of it. Steady floor of bad, no week it got fixed. You cannot win four games when opposing teams know they can just hand it off.