New York Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart has the entire football world talking with his bravado and exciting style. Dart’s game has led to some signature moments already in his short NFL career, but many see it as reckless and fear that the rookie is taking too many unnecessary risks with his body.

Dart has already missed two games due to a concussion and then took several hard hits upon his return to the lineup Monday night in New England. Dart says he’s not going to change his approach to the game, and the Giants have said they don’t want to hinder him in any way, but do want him to protect himself better.

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“I watch quarterbacks who play kind of like me around the league. I watch how Josh Allen plays, I watch how Patrick Mahomes plays. They take hits, too, so I’m not an anomaly here,” Dart said this week after taking a massive wallop from Patriots linebacker Christian Elliss on Monday night.

“I just see that they play the game as competitive and as hard as they can. Like I’ve said, this is football, you’re going to get tackled. They get tackled. Every quarterback gets tackled. They’ve taken big hits. Every single quarterback has taken big hits. I don’t really watch it and be like, all right, I’m going to try to model exactly how they do it. We all play the game differently. I think the narrative is just a little funny to me, to be honest.”

Former Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, who is considered a candidate for the Giants’ head coaching job, says Dart’s running game is the thing that “sets him apart.”

But at the same time, McCarthy says it’s Dart’s responsibility to protect himself when he leaves the pocket. He owes that not only to himself but to the team.

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“The two most important abilities are accountability and availability,” McCarthy said in an interview on The Pat McAfee Show. “And availability is Number One. You’ve got to be available to your team. It’s decision-making. So, if you can improve your decision-making, that’s going to improve your availability.”

Dart will take the bye week to ready himself for the final four games of the season. He isn’t going to take a respite. After all, he was on the sidelines for two weeks before last week’s 33-15 loss to the Patriots.

“No, it’s all ball for me. It’s all ball,” Dart told reporters this week. “Study, study the game plan, be ready for these next four weeks. I think more specifically this week, just self-reflecting, being able to look at any tendencies that we have on offense, being able to see different adjustments that I can make, checks, alerts at the line of scrimmage, and try to break those and then just continue to stack for these weeks coming forward.”

The Giants have an opportunity to finish the season strong. They play three teams that will not be participating in the postseason in Washington, Minnesota, and Las Vegas before facing the Cowboys at home in the season finale.

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This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: Giants coaching candidate weighs in on Jaxson Dart’s reckless style