Giants quarterbacks coach Brian Callahan said Jaxson Dart\u2019s timing, which connects to his eyes and footwork, is an emphasis to improve the second-year QB\u2019s performance in the pocket.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a first-year player coming into the second year, so [we\u2019re looking to improve] everything from knowing the new system and tying the footwork in and eyes and feet,\u201d Callahan said Wednesday after the team\u2019s final minicamp practice. \u201cIt\u2019s really ground zero for us because everything\u2019s new. So we just start there and keep teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for him eye discipline and footwork consistency have been the two things that we focus a lot on, and I think he\u2019s really answered the bell over the course of the spring,\u201d Callahan added later. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of good things he did [last year]. Just trying to build on that and then try to refine it. And to me the biggest mark for the quarterbacks in this league is how consistent are you with those things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Callahan, who was fired after two seasons as the Tennessee Titans head coach, was Peyton Manning\u2019s Denver Broncos QB coach for the Super Bowl 50 winners in 2015. He was Joe Burrow\u2019s offensive coordinator in Cincinnati prior to his time in Nashville. Then he had a chance to work with last year\u2019s No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward with the Titans.<\/p>\n
The son of longtime NFL and offensive line coach Bill Callahan is now the Giants\u2019 passing game coordinator on top of coaching Dart and the QBs. And his voice was a prominent one on the practice field this spring.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s partially due to how head coach John Harbaugh and Matt Nagy delegate. It\u2019s also because Callahan is charged with the most important element of Harbaugh\u2019s team: The retraining and improvement of Dart.<\/p>\n
To hear Callahan tell it, he has not sugarcoated any of the coaching points for Dart, and the quarterback has been coachable in taking his coach\u2019s advice and applying it on the field.<\/p>\n
Not that Callahan is trying to change everything. The Giants remain high on plenty of Dart\u2019s qualities as a player. They\u2019re just trying to refine them and marry them into Nagy\u2019s new system.<\/p>\n
\u201c[You] try really hard to let Jaxson be Jaxson,\u201d Callahan said. \u201cHe\u2019s got a skill set that\u2019s unique to him, and he\u2019s done a lot of really nice things so far early in his career. His ability to improve on things I think is important. And we had some very direct conversations about what those things are and a very specific plan for the spring.<\/p>\n
\u201c[We planned] what we wanted to get better at and how we wanted to get better at it, what drills we\u2019re going to do, how it\u2019s going to integrate with what we\u2019re going to do, the teamwork,\u201d he continued. \u201cSo it was planned out. We talked about [it in] one of our early meetings, but very, very strategic in that regard. And he did a really nice job with it. I think he\u2019s gotten better over the course of the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Callahan said the primary coaching point on pocket presence has to do with making sure \u201cyour feet are in rhythm with what the play design is.\u201d To stay on time, Dart needs consistent \u201ceye discipline,\u201d and the Giants\u2019 coaches can continue to tailor the system and play wrinkles to Dart\u2019s unique rhythm, as well.<\/p>\n
That \u201chelps that decision making process and that timing and that tempo that you want to play with the rhythm in the passing game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Situational work is putting constructive pressure on Dart to learn from mistakes or overcome odds in practice so he\u2019ll be ready for it when he sees them in the games, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis ability to take coaching, make corrections, make mistakes and then fix them I think has been really fun,\u201d Callahan said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a fun coaching journey this spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
For example, Callahan said, Tuesday\u2019s second minicamp practice included a \u201cvery specific, very, very challenging period where we did all fourth downs. So fourth and sixth to 10, obviously not a very high conversion percentage down.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defense has given us all kinds of different looks and pressures. It\u2019s really hard for the quarterbacks,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t like it. It\u2019s very tilted in the favor of the defense. But those are the moments that you can actually, I think, get the most growth \u2026 because there\u2019s failure involved and there\u2019s really hard challenging things that come up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dart had \u201cone or two\u201d plays in that period that were \u201cpretty dang good,\u201d Callahan said, and \u201cthe defense nailed a few too,\u201d as is to be expected.<\/p>\n
Regarding Dart\u2019s running and decision making outside the pocket \u2014 the elephant in the room with the young QB \u2014 Callahan did note that while reviewing some of Dart\u2019s mistakes last year, the quarterback and his coach didn\u2019t agree on how Dart should have approached some of those situations, even in hindsight.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re honest about it. You approach it pretty straightforward,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd when you have a chance to point something out like that, you point it out. You know, we don\u2019t always have to agree on every situation. And the best thing is, is those are all now in the past. And it\u2019s more about what he does moving forward at this point\u2026 He\u2019s incredibly coachable. He\u2019s very open minded. And I think he understands that for us to be the team we want to be, we need him on the field. And I think that\u2019s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Callahan said Dart\u2019s running ability is \u201cunique.\u201d But the coaches clearly have tried to hammer into Dart\u2019s head that there is a difference between taking chances on conversion downs rather than on first and second downs, from a risk-reward perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou maybe get to a point where, hey, look, it\u2019s a first and 10, I don\u2019t need you to lower your shoulder and try to run through somebody,\u201d he said. \u201cJust get on the ground or get out of bounds and we\u2019ll move on to the next play. But I never want to take that ability for him to affect the game with his legs, because it\u2019s something that makes him a really dangerous player in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dart\u2019s legs make him dangerous. His footwork and eye discipline and timing in the pocket, though, can differentiate him if he takes Callahan\u2019s coaching points to the practice field in training camp and the regular season games this fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Giants quarterbacks coach Brian Callahan said Jaxson Dart\u2019s timing, which connects to his eyes and footwork, is an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2067],"tags":[1811,7,519,13,2909,3515,1917,56,2321,2469,6,1257],"class_list":["post-917316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-giants","tag-brian-callahan","tag-football","tag-giants","tag-jaxson-dart","tag-john-harbaugh","tag-minicamp","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-giants","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkgiants","tag-nfl","tag-quarterback"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116740014985851877","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}