Briefly weighed retirement after injury

Skattebo admitted Thursday in an appearance on FanDuel TV's "Up & Adams" that he briefly considered retirement after sustaining a severe right ankle injury in an Oct. 26 loss to the Eagles. "I would say probably a month in [to the rehab process] I was kind of like, 'Do I really want to do this?'" Skattebo said. "But I got to go back and play."

Skattebo told Kay Adams that coming out of college, he had determined that if he ever suffered a major injury, he would step away from football. However, after dislocating his right ankle just eight games into his rookie season, Skattebo determined that he still had too much good football left in him to justify an early retirement. Skattebo underwent surgery a day after suffering the injury and has bounced back well, as the Giants cleared him to take part in drills during June minicamp and made him available with no restrictions to begin training camp. After carrying four times for 19 yards in the Giants' preseason opener, Skattebo didn't play in either of the final two exhibitions, but he was held out merely as precaution. Skattebo is still likely to have his workload scaled back to some degree to begin the 2026 campaign after averaging 19.5 touches per game from Weeks 2 through 7 last season, but he'll head into the Sept. 13 opener versus the Cowboys as the Giants' clear lead option out of the backfield.