Storylines to follow on Thursday Night Football

Nabers, Lamb in WR battle

Malik Nabers has now put together back-to-back dominant outings after his breakout game in Cleveland. The rookie pulled in eight of 12 targets for 78 yards and two touchdowns, and as impressive as his box score looked, it doesn’t do his performance justice. Nabers made several athletic catches, including his incredible grab over Browns cornerback Martin Emerson for a 28-yard gain late in the second quarter. His statistics through his first three games has landed him in the NFL record books, and has also led to him being nominated for Rookie of the Week three times already.

Nabers will have a tough matchup this week as he goes up against Cowboys two-time Pro Bowl corner Trevon Diggs. The 26-year-old corner, who has racked up 19 interceptions in 50 career games, has already registered one interception this season as he moves further away from the torn ACL that cut his 2023 campaign short. While it is only three games into the season, it has become clear that the Giants have full confidence in their rookie wideout, no matter who is lined up to cover him.

“You have to be aware of the people that you’re playing,” said Daboll. “We certainly have a good one this week that I think will be matched up quite a bit in Diggs, so you definitely have to be aware. But when you have confidence in your skill player offensively, you go ahead and give them opportunities. So, it just means you have to be that much cleaner, crisper on things when you’re going against a very good player. There’s a lot of teams that do that with their guys, I would say. I don’t want to speak for them in their game plan meetings. But like I said before many times, I’m glad we have him.”

Across the field, the Cowboys’ offense features one of the most talented wide receivers in the NFL. CeeDee Lamb led the NFL with 135 receptions last season, which he took for 1,749 yards and 12 touchdowns on his way to being named first-team All-Pro. While limited to just four receptions for 77 yards in last year’s season opener, Lamb exploded for 11 receptions for 151 yards and a score in the second meeting between the two teams. Lamb’s 52 receptions for 722 yards in eight career games against the Giants are his highest totals against any opponent.

“Tough opponent, really good player,” Daboll said Tuesday about the three-time Pro Bowl receiver.

In last week’s win, running back Devin Singletary carried the ball 16 times for 65 yards (4.1 avg.) and a touchdown, which marked the second consecutive week he averaged over four yards per carry. In the Week 2 loss to the Commanders, the veteran back averaged nearly 6.0 yards per carry after he took 16 carries for 95 yards and a touchdown. The 27-year-old also had his best day as a receiver against the Browns as he caught four passes for 43 yards.

It wasn’t all good, though. Singletary lost a fumble against the Browns, which was the second consecutive week in which he had a turnover. But Daboll isn’t letting those two negative plays completely overshadow all of the good Singletary has done so far this season. The back has forced 17 missed tackles on the year, is averaging 3.93 yards after contact per attempt, and has six runs of 10+ yards already. All of this has led to him averaging 4.7 yards per attempt on the season.

“He’s a pro,” Daboll said about the veteran back’s fumbles. “Yeah. He’ll work on that. I’ve been around him a bunch. So, again, you can’t let one bad or two bad plays define a lot of the good things. So, you keep working on your ball security, and he’ll do that.”

“He’s a pro, played a lot of football,” quarterback Daniel Jones added. “We have a lot of confidence in him and that’s not changing any of our confidence. He’s played well, come back and been big time for us. No one’s losing confidence in that.”

Singletary is faced with a positive matchup this week, as the Cowboys enter Thursday Night Football with the league’s No. 32 rush defense in yards, yards per attempt, and touchdowns. In fact, during their two-game losing streak, Dallas has surrendered an average of 232 yards per game against the Saints and Ravens. However, Daboll reminded the media Tuesday that while the numbers might put Dallas’ struggles against the run into the spotlight, it’s important to keep in mind how the game script each week played a factor in opponents running the ball so much.

“The Cleveland game was kind of touch and go there for a while until the end of the second quarter, the early part of the third quarter,” Daboll said. “Then they get up. So, you call games differently based on how things are going in the game. New Orleans got off to a fast start. They were up 35-13 or whatever it was at the half. And the same thing with Baltimore. The unique thing is in the fourth quarter, they scored a bunch of points there to make it a game, 28-25. Baltimore hit a couple third-down conversions, a big one. (Ravens wide receiver Zay) Flowers over there.

“So, each of them are a little bit different. When you’re up that much or down that much, you look at tendencies and things like that. But as the game goes, play callers call things differently based on situations you’re in, down and distances, score. So those numbers are those numbers. But I think the games are all different, and you evaluate how they call it.”