Jaxson Dart wishes the New York Giants won more games in his rookie year. The fact they have not makes their season finale Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys mean something.
The Giants can still get the first pick in the draft if they lose and Las Vegas beats Kansas City. Dart does not care about that and just wants to finish on a high note.
“This is a huge division game,” Dart said. “That obviously matters to me a ton, and I’m excited to go out there and compete against them.”
New York is 3-13, Dallas is 7-8-1 and there's not much more on the line than draft positioning and Dallas' Dak Prescott leading the NFL in yards passing. Cowboys first-year coach Brian Schottenheimer feels good about Prescott and the rest of the starters going on the field at the Meadowlands.
“Plan on finishing strong,” Schottenheimer said. “(We) get a chance to go 5-1 hopefully in the division, finish 8-8-1 and that’s the plan as we’re looking at now.”
The Giants planned to take a step forward after going 3-14 in 2024. Instead, Russell Wilson flamed out with an 0-3 start, coach Brian Daboll got fired and everything has fallen apart.
The biggest long-term question is whether ownership will fire general manager Joe Schoen or keep him and let him oversee the coaching search. Dart may or may not be the franchise QB moving forward, so he's just focusing on this weekend.
"I care about winning, so whatever that takes," said Dart, who has thrown for 13 touchdowns and run for nine.
First-year Dallas defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus’ job security is a topic of serious speculation with the Cowboys among the worst defensive teams in the NFL. A brief surge in three games after trading for standout defensive tackle Quinnen Williams has faded with more blown assignments and big plays allowed.
Owner and general manager Jerry Jones said on his radio during the week that any decisions on the coaching staff would come “pronto” after the season. He has said several times there wouldn’t be an in-season firing of Eberflus, who was Chicago's coach until being fired midseason last year.
Schottenheimer deflected a question about Jones’ comment.
“I want to get through this game, and then everything’s going to be evaluated,” Schottenheimer said. “But the biggest thing that we want to do is make the right decisions in everything we do. My focus right now really is not on New Year’s. It’s about figuring out how to block Dexter Lawrence, you know, ‘Sexy Dexy.’ I mean, he is a big man. That’s our focus right now.”
Even with Kayvon Thibodeaux on injured reserve, New York still has Lawrence and edge rushers Brian Burns and Abdul Carter. Burns has a career-high 16 1/2 sacks, and Carter has heated up late in his rookie year with stats to show for how much pressure he has caused.
“He’s committed to it and we’ve talked a lot about him committing to his process and making some tweaks and changes, which is great,” interim defensive coordinator Charlie Bullen said of Carter. “You can’t always force the process, as well, so I think it’s just been continued commitment by him off the field and then on the field, he’s had some success. I think now, at this point, he’s in a little bit of a groove and a rhythm and gaining confidence and so that’s what you’re seeing on the field.”
One of Schottenheimer’s pet phrases is “championship opportunity,” and he’s still using it even though the Cowboys are about to play their third game since being eliminated from the playoff contention.
They do have the incentive of trying to avoid consecutive losing seasons for the first time since the last of three in a row in 2002. Prescott said he has never had a losing season when he wasn’t injured. It has happened twice in Dallas in years cut short by injuries to the star quarterback (2020 and 2024).
“To me, a championship opportunity is you take whatever that game is, you give it everything you’ve got throughout the course of the week,” Schottenheimer said. “Because what you want is you want the bigger the game becomes, it’s no different. When you’re playing in a Super Bowl, you want it to feel no different than Week 6 or Week 7 or Week 8. Because it’s just another championship opportunity.”
AP Pro Football Writer Schuyler Dixon in Frisco, Texas, contributed to this report.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
FILE - Dallas Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens (3) carries the ball after reception during a NFL football game against the New York Giants on Sept. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Matt Patterson, File)
FILE - Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) is sacked by Kayvon Thibodeaux (5) during a NFL football game against the New York Giants on Sept. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Matt Patterson, File)
New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart (6) celebrates his touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A grandmother and her 5-year-old grandson burned to death in Gaza when their tent caught fire while cooking, as thousands of Palestinians endure colder weather in makeshift housing.
The nylon tent in Yarmouk caught fire Thursday night while a meal was being prepared, a neighbor said. A hospital official said that two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli gunfire on Friday in Gaza.
The shaky 12-week-old ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militant group has largely ended large-scale Israeli bombardment of Gaza. But Palestinians are still being killed by Israeli forces, especially along the so-called Yellow Line that delineates areas under Israeli control.
On Friday, American actor and film producer Angelina Jolie visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Over the past few weeks, cold winter rains have repeatedly lashed the sprawling tent cities, causing flooding, turning Gaza’s dirt roads into mud and causing damaged buildings to collapse.
Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are getting into Gaza during the truce. Figures recently released by Israel’s military suggest it hasn’t met the ceasefire stipulation of allowing 600 trucks of aid into Gaza a day, though Israel disputes that finding.
Israel has said throughout the war that Hamas was siphoning off aid supplies, preventing the population in Gaza from receiving them. Last month, the World Food Program said that there have been “notable improvements” in food security in Gaza since the ceasefire.
Palestinians have long called for mobile homes and caravans to be allowed in to protect them against living in impractical and worn out tents.
Jolie met with members of the Red Crescent on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing and then visited a hospital in the nearby city of Arish to speak with Palestinian patients on Friday, according to Egyptian officials.
Her visit sought to raise support for the displaced and humanitarian workers in the crises in Gaza as well as in Sudan, Jolie's team said in a statement.
“What needs to happen is clear: the ceasefire must hold, and access must be sustained, safe and urgently scaled up so that aid, fuel and critical medical supplies can move quickly and consistently, at the volume required,” Jolie said about Gaza.
Reopening the crossing, which would allow Palestinians to leave Gaza — especially the ill and wounded who could get specialized care unavailable in the territory — has been contentious. Israel has said that it will only allow Palestinians to exit Gaza, not enter, until militants in Gaza return all the hostages they took in the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war. The remains of one hostage are still in Gaza.
Israel also says Palestinians wanting to leave Gaza will have to get Israeli and Egyptian security approval. Egypt, meanwhile, says it wants the crossing immediately opened in both directions, so Palestinians in Egypt can enter Gaza. That’s a position rooted in Egypt’s vehement opposition to Palestinian refugees permanently resettling in the country.
For more than two decades until 2022, Jolie was a special envoy to the U.N. refugee agency.
On Friday, the foreign ministers of Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, expressed concern about Gaza's humanitarian situation.
The situation has been “compounded by the continued lack of sufficient humanitarian access, acute shortages of essential life-saving supplies, and the slow pace of the entry of essential materials," according to the joint statement.
The Palestinian death toll from the war is at least 71,271, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians in its count. The Israel-Hamas war began with the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
On Friday, two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli gunfire in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza, a hospital official said. Israel's military provided no immediate information on the report.
Meanwhile, Israel continues operating in the occupied West Bank.
On Friday, the Palestinian Prisoners media office said that Israel carried out numerous raids across the territory, including the major cities of Ramallah and Hebron. Nearly 50 people were detained, following the arrest of at least 50 other Palestinians on Thursday, most of those in the Ramallah area.
Israel's military said there were arrests made of people “involved in terrorist activity." Last week, a Palestinian attacker rammed his car into a man and then stabbed a young woman in northern Israel, killing both of them, police said.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society says that Israel has arrested 7,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem this year, and 21,000 since the war began. The number arrested from Gaza isn't made public by Israel.
Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Fatima Abu al-Bayd inspects what remains of her mother's tent after her mother, Amal Abu Al-Khair, and grandchild, Saud, were killed when it caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp in Gaza City, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
CORRECTS BYLINE TO EMAD ELGEBALY - American actor and film producer Angelina Jolie, front left, greets Red Crecent workers during her visit to the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Egypt, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Emad Elgebaly)
Magdi Abu Al-Khair bids farewell to his mother Amal Abu Al-Khair at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026, after she and her grandchild Saud were killed when their tent caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
American actor and film producer Angelina Jolie, front left, greets Red Crecent workers during her visit to the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Egypt, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Arafat)
The bodies of Amal Abu Al-Khair and her grandchild, Saud, are transferred to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after they were killed when their tent caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Fatima Abu al-Bayd inspects what remains of her mother's tent after her mother, Amal Abu Al-Khair, and grandchild, Saud, were killed when it caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp in Gaza City, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Fatima Abu al-Bayd inspects what remains of her mother's tent after her mother, Amal Abu Al-Khair, and grandchild, Saud, were killed when it caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp in Gaza City, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Magdi Abu Al-Khair bids farewell to his mother, Amal Abu Al-Khair, after she and her grandchild, Saud, were killed when their tent caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
