The Jaxson Dart Era Begins in New York—to Great Acclaim, and Great Worry
Dart is so far an unproven entity. The Giants are not. One fan excitedly looks ahead to what could be as the rookie QB gets the starting nod over Russell Wilson, while also acknowledging what the franchise has been as of late: bad.
Disappointingly, WFAN was in the middle of a bottom-of-the-hour commercial break on Tuesday when Adam Schefter broke the news that the 0-3 New York Giants had benched veteran quarterback Russell Wilson in favor of rookie Jaxson Dart. I say “disappointingly” because the midday sports talk radio hosts had previously been discussing such a move in theory—saying things like “I think it’s a huge mistake” and that it would be better to “go Jameis Winston”—and I was eager to hear their knee-jerk reactions as they first heard the news. At any rate, my own knee-jerk reaction, the real lizard-brain shit, was a big, doofy smile—the smile of a fan squinting into the sun and defiantly ignoring the consequences.
Dart, 22, is the flopsy-haired Utahn with Star Wars–inspired monocular eye black who was drafted 25th overall this spring by the Giants, a terrible football team that is also my ancestral favorite. His road to the pros included a stop at USC (where he threw for 391 yards and four touchdowns in his true frosh debut) followed by Ole Miss (where he broke a record that had previously been set by Eli Manning and where he described the fashion as “every guy dressed the exact same: khaki shorts, khaki pants, solid-color shirt”). He loves painting rainbows and lowering shoulders. He sports a necklace made of sparkling hearts he pilfered from his little sister and has been aptly described as a “young mormon steven segal.”
Following a preseason game this summer in which Dart threw a sweet touchdown pass to wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey, Giants head coach Brian Daboll told the young quarterback that he was proud of him. As Daboll later told it, Dart’s response was: “That was mid.”
It was for all of these reasons and more (the Bachelor Nation shout-out; my desire to take contra–Danny Heifetz stances for fun) that my first impulse was that sweet summer smile. I imagined Dart connecting with the Giants’ burgeoning star receiver Malik Nabers, two 22-year-olds ushering in a bright new future. I envisioned bulky-bodied end zone celebrations between Dart and another Big Blue rookie, the “crayon eater” (laudatory) Cam Skattebo. Let Daboll cook! I thought, glad that the coach could work with a key ingredient of his actual choosing again, the way he famously did back in Buffalo with Josh Allen. (Dart is a big Allen fan.)
But then the more rational parts of my brain switched back on, and all the skeptical voices and reasonable fears flooded in.
More on the Jaxson Dart Decision
Was this a true declaration of support for Dart by the Giants, or just a desperation move after Russ’s over-seasoned fare was to nobody’s liking? Is this an organization that can be trusted to develop a raw, young prospect with the necessary intention and care? Will Dart be the next Bo Nix—or a redux of Josh Rosen? And look … how sure are we, really, that Daboll will ever turn out to be the mythical QB whisperer of our hopes and dreams?
After the Giants took Dart in the draft, my aforementioned colleague Heifetz wrote one hell of a line: “It just feels like the Giants are half in on their general manager and coach, and the general manager and coach are half in on Dart.” With this move, a lot of people are now all in, in an ante-up-or-shut-up kind of way. Which means a lot of pressure on each of them individually, and the team as a whole. The rest of the season could feel like playing with house money, or it could be the one that leads another administration to go bust.
For a decade and a half, the New York Giants had a single starting quarterback, Eli Manning. In the handful of years since, the franchise’s QB room has been more like the locus of a cringe, chaotic SNL Stefon sketch, populated by reclamation projects and uneasy twinsies, the most courtside man in New York, and, for an awkward length of time, a guy who was focused primarily on slangin’ chicken cutlets to the masses. But all of that is old news: Starting today, we party Darty. (Sorry!) On Tuesday afternoon, Giants fans’ responses to Dart’s promotion ranged, as ever, from the sensible (“ruh-roh …”) to the sicko (“lmaoooo YOLO!!!”). And just about every viewpoint, however conflicting, made a certain amount of sense.
While I haven’t had time to do a thorough linguistic analysis of the discourse on tri-state area airwaves since the news broke a few hours ago, there is one phrase that already stands out as the hands-down no. 1 most uttered, on both sides of the Dart Excitement aisle: “Throw him to the wolves.” Because looking at the Giants’ upcoming schedule, how could you not?
Right off the bat: a game against the 3-0 Chargers, whose defense has given up only four total touchdowns this season. (That contest will also overlap with no. 162 for the [crosses self] New York Mets, woof.) Then there’s a road game in rowdy New Orleans. And then, a three-game stretch in which the Giants play the Eagles twice, with a trip to Mile High in between. Even the biggest Dart hawks can’t really dispute that such an NFL intro constitutes clear to-the-wolves throwing. It’s just that some choose to believe that, hey, maybe the kid’s got enough chops to dodge the beasts.
Dart is, for the next few days at least, still unproven. The New York Giants are decidedly not. As an organization, the franchise is proven, all right: proven to have zero identity for what has now been nearly a decade; proven to mishandle anyone with genuine NFL potential; proven to make a mockery of themselves on prestige television. In a way, you do in fact gotta hand it to ’em: Fumbling the generational talent that is Saquon Barkley was actually probably harder to do than simply harnessing his star power and hanging on for dear life. When former Giants quarterback Daniel Jones emerged as a starter in Indianapolis this season and immediately thrived, it barely even registered as a surprise. (On Monday night, as Giants QB rumors swirled, Jones was yukking it up on the ManningCast, a reminder of what once never was.)
To be clear, it’s extremely easy to imagine an infinite doom loop scenario in which Dart underperforms, Daboll gets sacked, and a new administration comes in—without the starting quarterback of their choice—and so on. But it’s way more fun to imagine something we haven’t already seen before. “The whole energy around the Giants completely changes. That’s the good thing,” allowed WFAN host Sal Licata on Tuesday after returning from the commercial break to the Dart news. The bad thing, his tone implied, was everything else.
“You never know when you’ll get one of those magical New York stories,” sighed Licata’s cohost, Brandon Tierney, in summary and conclusion at the end of their hectic shift. (His examples of such stories were Linsanity and Nolan McLean.) “It’s time to see the kid play. I wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t do it. They’re doing it. Let’s hope they don’t ruin him.” The great news is that I have a few days between now and Sunday before the Giants find a way to ruin my mood.
