Giants Preseason Week 1 Game Recap: 1st Win of 2025!
New York Giants defeat Buffalo Bills - 2025 Preseason Week 1
Take a deep breath, Giants fans, football is back, and the G-men started off 2025 right, with a 34-25 preseason win over the Buffalo Bills on Saturday afternoon. Making assumptions based on the preseason, especially after one game, is not the best practice. Still, the offense overall looked dangerous (or DangeRuss, if you will), no matter who was at Quarterback.
I mentioned in my game preview that one of the things I was watching for was which QB looked the part. It’s safe to say that they all did, as much as you can in a preseason game anyway. The group completed 35 of 51 passes against the Bills, throwing three touchdowns and zero interceptions, and scoring a passer rating of 104.8 overall. They were also sacked zero times on 51 dropbacks, which is an excellent sign for an offensive line that gave up almost three per game last season.
Those are both exciting numbers for fans, but let’s not waste any more time; it’s time to talk about Jaxson Dart. The rookie showed exactly what the coaching staff and fans were hoping for in his debut, going 12-19 for 154 yards and a touchdown, while adding 24 yards rushing on three attempts. This was apparently “mid” according to Dart himself after the game, so if he can improve on that, it will bode well for the Giants as well as for Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen.
Other stand-outs include Lil’Jordan Humphrey, who caught that touchdown from Dart, Jameis Winston, who turned back the clock on this first-down run, and Dante ‘Turbo’ Miller, who only ran for 22 yards but caught seven passes for a team-high 80 yards, possibly earning himself a roster spot.
Another sign of hope for the Giants is that there were no notable injuries on Saturday, which is more than can be said for many teams, unfortunately. All available starters played, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change heading into preseason week 2 against the Jets. Daboll said in a press conference that, “I thought we needed that…We'll do it again. We're going to play in the preseason”.
For a team that is 2-6 in the first month of the season since 2023 and has a lot of new pieces, maybe playing in the preseason is just what they need to get off to a better start. A win in week one of the preseason doesn’t mean that the offense is going to score 30 every week, or that this team is playoff-bound, but as Brian Daboll also mentioned, “it’s better than the alternative”.