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Eli Manning upset Tom Brady twice in the Super Bowl in part because he was backed by pass rushers who could kill the head of the snake.

The Giants won’t be sniffing their fifth Lombardi Trophy unless and until Jaxson Dart proves that he is the franchise quarterback who can win them a championship, but in the meantime, the arrival of prized blue-chip rookie Abdul Carter has fueled a belief that the head of the snake will be in the crosshairs again.

The trading of DT Leonard Williams as Dexter Lawrence’s interior partner and the failure of injury-plagued OLB Azeez Ojulari to emerge as a mainstay were setbacks, but GM Joe Schoen has dug out of the hole with a Déjà Blue philosophy that saw him orchestrate the trade with the Panthers for Brian Burns in 2024 and sack Carter with the third-overall draft pick in the spring … after using the fifth pick of the 2022 draft on Kayvon Thibodeaux.

Carter … Burns … Thibodeaux.