Giants Held Prescott to 5.1 Yards an Attempt Without a Sack
Dennard Wilson's coverage held Dak Prescott to no completion longer than 17 yards. Abdul Carter and Chauncey Golston had four pressures each and Brian Burns had one. Four pass interference penalties gave Dallas 69 yards.
Dak Prescott was 22 of 34 for 175 yards Sunday night, 5.1 yards an attempt, with one interception. His longest completion went 17 yards. The Giants had no sacks and three quarterback hits. Brian Burns, who had 16.5 sacks last season, had one pressure on 30 pass-rush snaps, according to Pro Football Focus.
GiantsGator's Sept. 12 preview said the game would turn on defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson's coverage against Prescott, who entered 14-3 as a starter against the Giants. GiantsGator's Sept. 9 analysis said the Giants' pressure "has to come from Brian Burns and Abdul Carter." Abdul Carter and Chauncey Golston had four pressures each and Kayvon Thibodeaux had three. Burns had one.
Prescott's 5.1 yards an attempt
Prescott's 5.1 yards an attempt was his third-lowest in 18 starts against the Giants, according to his Pro Football Reference game log. The two lower games were in 2016, his rookie season. He averaged 7.6 yards an attempt in 2025.
Prescott threw five passes that traveled 20 or more yards in the air and completed none, per PFF. His completions averaged 3.8 air yards. He released the ball 2.66 seconds after the snap on average, and 55.9% of his throws were short of the first-down marker, according to the same PFF data.
Wilson said on Sept. 10: "I believe in no free access, no easy completions." He also said Prescott "gets the ball out of his hands quick."
Dallas had at least two receptions of 20 or more yards in every game last season and 56 for the year, ESPN's Todd Archer reported. It had none Sunday.
Dan Duggan of The Athletic wrote that Wilson "showed some funky looks on third downs, but mostly dropped back into coverage." Dallas dropped four passes and lost 62 yards on the drops, per PFF. Greg Newsome II was beaten deep once, and George Pickens dropped the pass, SNY reported.
Four pass interference penalties, 69 yards
The Giants were called for pass interference four times for 69 yards, per the play-by-play. All four came on Dallas touchdown drives.
On the first touchdown drive, Newsome was flagged for 38 yards on third-and-11, and Dru Phillips was flagged for 19 yards on third-and-4. Phillips' penalty put Dallas at the 2. On the second touchdown drive, Phillips was flagged twice more; the second call moved the ball from the 2 to the 1. On the third touchdown drive, Jevón Holland was called for unnecessary roughness after a 17-yard Dallas completion. The 15-yard penalty put Dallas at the Giants 17, and Javonte Williams scored on the next play.
Dallas had five first downs by penalty, per ESPN's team stats. Its 244 total yards do not include the 84 yards from those five penalties. Duggan wrote in the same thread that Phillips' interference calls were "a trend last season that needs to get cleaned up."
Deonte Banks went off limping in the third quarter and Paulson Adebo replaced him. On the next play, Prescott completed a 15-yard pass to CeeDee Lamb against Adebo on third-and-12, ESPN's Jordan Raanan posted. Newsome was evaluated for a concussion in the fourth quarter, and Colton Hood played six snaps in his place. Newsome returned on the play that ended in Williams' touchdown from the 17, per the play-by-play. Duggan posted that a coverage bust led to that touchdown.
Burns: one pressure on 30 pass-rush snaps
Burns played 49 of 58 defensive snaps, per Pro Football Reference. His average separation from Prescott was 5.4 yards, per Next Gen Stats' game page. The league average is 4.58 yards. Carter's was 4.32. Cowboys left tackle Tyler Guyton blocked Burns on 20 pass plays and did not allow a pressure, Tommy Yarrish of DallasCowboys.com posted, citing Next Gen Stats.
Carter had four pressures on 37 pass-rush snaps, per PFF. Golston had four on 20. Thibodeaux had three on 19. PFF's pass-rush grades rank Carter first among Giants defenders at 83.7. The interior linemen — DJ Reader, Shelby Harris, Darius Alexander and C.J. Okoye — had no pressures on 54 combined pass-rush snaps.
Thibodeaux "harassed Dak Prescott into the INT," the New York Post's Ryan Dunleavy wrote. Prescott said he was trying to throw the ball away on the play, per DallasCowboys.com's Nick Eatman. Prescott was 0 for 8 on throws under pressure and 22 of 26 when he was not pressured, Big Blue View's Anthony Del Genio wrote.
"They've got good pass rushers," Prescott said after the game, per the Dallas Sports Journal. "Yeah, made me get off the spot and move around, scramble a little bit early. But our guys settled in and did a good job."
The Giants play at the Rams on Monday, Sept. 21.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said Burns had no pressures on 28 pass-rush snaps, and gave Carter, Golston and Thibodeaux three each. Those were PFF's initial figures, charted overnight. This story now uses PFF's revised numbers: Burns one pressure on 30 rushes, Carter four on 37, Golston four on 20, Thibodeaux three on 19.