Giants' offensive line came together to avert sacks in win over Packers

Brian Daboll stood in front of his Giants in the locker room at MetLife Stadium after Monday night’s win over Green Bay and held up a special football.

“The game ball is going to go to the offensive line,” the head coach told the team.

Cheers and applause rang out.

After the Giants yielded 26 sacks over the previous four games and 69 sacks across the first 12 games, tackles Andrew Thomas and Tyre Phillips, guards Justin Pugh and Ben Bredeson and center John Michael Schmitz Jr. helped make a difference.

No sacks allowed. And the running game emerged with 209 yards, averaging 6.1 per carry.

“I think the five of those guys who have been working together have continually improved [and are] communicating well,” Daboll said before Wednesday’s walk-through practice at the Giants’ training center. “There’s obviously certainly things we can all do better, but it’s good to have those five guys out there for consecutive games.

“All of five of them have done a good job.”

The line had been hurt by injuries and some poor play. But it wasn’t just the blockers doing a good job in the 24-22 victory. Tommy DeVito did better work to help keep the sacks from adding up, too. He was sacked six times in the previous game, a 10-7 win over New England.

“It’s something that was a point of emphasis from the week prior,” the rookie quarterback said. “Try to just get the ball out of my hands, use my legs, run, just make decisions a little bit quicker.”

DeVito ran 10 times for 71 yards. Saquon Barkley led the Giants with 86 rushing yards.

“The offensive line did a great job,” DeVito said. “They’ve improved a ton week in and week out for the past couple weeks. … They’ve taken such attention to detail with everything, and I just appreciate everything they’re doing.

“Last week, not this past week, but the week before that, I made their jobs a little harder with some of the sacks. Could have helped out with some of them. So this week [I][ really honed in on it, just tried to get that number down as low as possible, and I’m going to continue to try to do that moving forward.”

Waller closer to being available

Darren Waller went on IR Nov. 4 because of a hamstring injury. Five games have come and gone, and the tight end now sounds ready if the Giants want to open the practice window for a potential return.

“What I’ve been used to doing is like 70-80 snaps a game,” Waller said. “So coming out the first week, probably not that. … But I plan on contributing given the opportunity.”

Daboll said Waller is “getting closer” and a determination on his status for Sunday’s game at New Orleans will be made “at the end of the week.”

Neal limited but participated in walkthrough

Right tackle Evan Neal, who has missed six games with ankle injuries, including the last four, returned for the walk-through. He was listed as a limited participant.