Heart of a Giant Award winner meets NY Giants’ Dexter Lawrence
Old Tappan football player accepts Heart of a Giant Award and Super Bowl LX tickets, meets Giants lineman Dexter Lawrence.
New York Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart has been let down by offensive game plans and the lack of reliable playmakers than his own performance.Despite a 16-13 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, Dart was prepared and not overwhelmed by what he saw.In support of Dart, the Giants failed to make crucial plays and catches, leading to drops, an interception and missed chances.Dart remains a promising franchise quarterback whose potential has not yet been fully realized.
EAST RUTHERFORD – The narratives being pushed about Jaxson Dart right now are so out of whack.
This level of hot take-ish discourse is expected when the New York Giants are mired in yet another historically bad stretch of football as a team with no end in sight.
Nine straight defeats. A franchise-worst 12 losses on the road.
So when the Giants dropped a 16-13 decision to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday afternoon, much of the post-game focus went to Dart and his performance. He completed 7-of-13 passes for 33 yards with an interception, and almost immediately the takes took off wildly.
The offensive game plan and the Giants’ weapons let Dart down big time.
What we’re seeing is not regression for Dart; it’s the inability of the Giants’ players and coaches paid to help the rookie take a step forward to step up.
After the loss to Washington two weeks ago, Dart was beaten down. He admitted that he is still searching for ways to cope with all this losing in a post-game moment of honesty and humility.
After Minnesota, Dart was angry. He was prepared to face the chaos Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores sent his way, and this was not a 22-year-old quarterback overwhelmed by the challenge.
“I didn’t think that there was anything that I felt like hadn’t seen on film. We kind of knew how they were in early downs and when they got into exotic downs depending on where the ball was on the field, what we were going to see,” Dart said. “Opportunity-wise, I think that you just have to be great, when you have those opportunities, you know, to throw the ball and a lot of them are on third down. You have to be able to make those plays and have everybody be on the same page.”
Dart took a page out of the Eli Manning playbook when asked to elaborate on that. He refused to blame the game plan or call out teammates for those drops, or for other receivers in certain situations to make the proper reads against pressure, allowing for “breather plays” as ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky told NorthJersey.com and The Record last week that would help enhance Dart’s performance.
If Dart was in the Class of 2026, he’d be QB1 – and in the eyes of some talent evaluators, that would be by a mile. So ignore the noise from those trying to bury Dart now just weeks after praising him as the top quarterback of the Class of 2025.
The Giants have done far more losing than Dart ever anticipated when he took over as their quarterback, especially after upsetting the Los Angeles Chargers and the Philadelphia Eagles in two of his first three starts.
On the road in Denver the week after that, Dart refused to accept what has been this franchise’s unfortunate reality for much of the past decade-plus. And when he scored on a gutsy touchdown run for a two-point lead with 33 seconds left, the rookie from Ole Miss never gave a thought to the idea that somehow, the Giants would find a way to give the game away.
The Vikings played the run lanes extremely well and showed tremendous discipline in terms of keeping Dart in the pocket. They took away that element of the Giants’ offense, refusing to bite on zone reads.
It’s why I wrote in late October that the Giants should have been aggressive at the NFL trade deadline by refusing to allow the record and place in the standings to dissuade team brass from making a move that improved this team for the rest of this season and beyond.
I wanted the Giants to go get a wide receiver if the right one hit the market, and don’t blink at the price.
That did not happen, in part because the best targets did not hit the market. But that leaves the door open for the Giants to draft a wide receiver again in the first round – Ohio State’s Carnell Tate, Arizona State’s Jordyn Tyson and Texas A&M’s KC Concepcion – to pair with Malik Nabers.
Seasons don’t bleed into one another. Momentum from one campaign to another is fool’s gold. You can’t bank results in December and automatically carry them over to the following September.
But the strength of a roster does indeed carry over, especially when a team starts to come together.
The Giants like to say that, on offense, they want to be aggressive, not reckless.
Should apply to every franchise decision moving forward: it’s the personality shift Dart, Cam Skattebo, Abdul Carter and Nabers, among others, are supposed to represent inside the building.
Hope is not a plan, as team brass learned the hard way last season.
The Giants go into 2026 uncertain of when Skattebo and Nabers will be back in uniform and ready to help Dart raise this team to new heights. The expectation is that both the rookie running back and the second-year star receiver will heal well and be on the field in the summer, but as with any recovery from surgery, the timetable remains uncertain.
When all else failed for the Vikings in the first half Sunday – you know, with drops – quarterback J.J. McCarthy went to his star, Justin Jefferson, not Jordan Addison or Jalen Nailor, both of whom killed him with bad plays.
Consider these plays for McCarthy and the Vikings, all in the first half:
Third and 11, Jefferson catch for 13 yardsThird and 12, Jefferson catch for 14 yardsSecond and 5, Jefferson catch for 16 yardsThird and 15, Jefferson catch for 14 yards
Tell me again who was there in those situations for Dart – that’s right, no one.
The Giants stood at the plate two years ago and waited for their pitch to hit at QB – and it never came. They could not let that happen again, and general manager Joe Schoen promised they would not be afraid to take the bat off their shoulders this time around, and look where they are now with Dart.
What matters most is what comes next, and it’s worth revisiting what Schoen shared in the aftermath of the 2023 draft.
“You can’t get complacent in this business, ever. You’ll have a lot of trouble if you do that,” Schoen said. “So again, we are always looking to get better regardless of where it is. We’ll never be complacent. We’ll always strive. There will be a standard of excellence, and we’ll always strive for that.”
Of course, we’re not entirely sure that Schoen will stay in this capacity to make those calls. His fate will be determined after the season, and as GM, his record of success and failure – like it or not – goes beyond the wins and way too many losses the Giants have compiled the last three years.
If Schoen goes, the Giants are welcoming the kind of narratives that have gone off the rails in recent days. Trade Dart, some say, and draft Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, which admittedly is a ridiculous assertion – one that I told you would emerge if the Giants opt to attempt to wipe the slate clean by ushering in a new front office with a new coaching staff.
The Giants are struggling to remember what that standard is because it has changed so much, of course. The bar has not been raised the way the Giants hoped in part due to circumstances and a dose of reality. But it should not stay where it is now forever.
You know what makes good players great? Other good players.
And this is where the Giants are with Dart leading the way as the face of the franchise.
The Giants played to win the game against the Vikings. Yes, at times they played to avoid the disaster mistake. That’s not a bad thing against Flores, although that approach did Dart no favors. The offensive line continues to push forward and give Dart a chance, as do running backs Tyrone Tracy and Devin Singletary.
But given opportunities to change the game and deliver for the QB, the weapons failed.
When Dart stepped on the field down 16-13 with four minutes left, the Giants had the chance to win the game. That essentially ended on second down near midfield when his laser strike to Darius Slayton on a slant that could have – should have? – gone to the house for a stunning touchdown was dropped.
Earlier in the game, the level of difficulty was high, but Wan’Dale Robinson could not hold onto a Dart pass that would have gone for 30-plus yards. And once again, Theo Johnson’s inconsistency as a pass catcher reared its ugly head when the second-year tight end could not secure a short pass, and the deflection wound up in the hands of a Vikings defender for a Dart interception.
What should excite the Giants is that, even with Brian Daboll fired, interim coach and play caller Mike Kafka in a difficult spot and a new coaching staff on the horizon, Dart has not even scratched the surface of how good he can be.
Through all the losing, the Giants’ rookie QB has shown you how special the future can be, and he’s just getting started.
“You look back at the tape, look at the things that you can correct. At the same time, I know the kind of player I am. I’m going to bounce back,” Dart said Wednesday. “I think everybody in their careers is going to have a game that they’re unhappy about, but I’ve done some really good things, too, and I know that my work ethic and my ability to perform, I don’t doubt that at all.”
Jaxson Dart represents real hope for which the Giants have been searching.
Don’t let anyone desperate for attention convince you otherwise.