Russell Wilson makes the 200th start of his NFL career Sunday against the Washington Commanders, having started every game he has ever played in since being drafted in Round 3 by the Seattle Seahawks in 2012.
As the New York Giants season begins, it is already time to wonder how many more starts Wilson is going to get before the franchise turns the reigns over the Jaxson Dart.
The Giants already listed Dart as QB2 ahead of Jameis Winston on their “unofficial” depth chart for Sunday’s game. Yes, that chart is unofficial. It doesn’t tie the Giants’ hands or mean things will play out exactly the way the chart says they will at every position.
No PR intern, though, is going to stack a piece of information like that, send it to the media and as a result out into the NFL universe, without the head coach of the football team knowing that was about to happen. There’s zero chance that was done on a whim. It is impossible to think the Giants as an organization did not understand the attention that move would get.
I have said again and again that I do not believe the Giants should be in a rush to play Dart. No NFL quarterback has ever been ruined by having to sit, whether for a few games or a few seasons, and wait his turn. Plenty have been ruined by being thrown to the wolves too soon, asked to carry a franchise long before they were ready, or their teams were ready to support them.
Ask Anthony Richardson. Ask Zach Wilson. Ask Sam Darnold. On the flip side, ask Patrick Mahomes if waiting and learning behind a quality veteran was a bad thing.
Wilson is not a great quarterback at this stage of his career. He is, though, still a capable one. He and Winston provide security for Dart, they give the Giants the ability to shield him from the wolves until the young pup is fully ready to defend himself.
Make no mistake, though, it is crystal clear that Giants head coach Brian Daboll — who professes “great appreciation” for Wilson — is itching to turn Dart loose.
Why else would Dart have taken nearly all of the second-team reps, ahead of Winston, since early in training camp? Why else would Daboll spend so much time practically glued to Dart’s hip on the practice field? Daboll’s future employment with the Giants is tied to Dart’s success or failure.
There is no chance Daboll lets the season, and perhaps his one chance to be an NFL head coach, go completely up in smoke without his choice for quarterback of the future getting a chance to do something about either of those. It doesn’t do Daboll any good to draft Dart, work with him, then watch him win for somebody else.
GM Joe Schoen said recently that “the timeline [for Dart] will be the timeline however it works out.”
The clock is ticking.
Dianna Russini of The Athletic wrote this recently:
Russell Wilson is the starter, and he has the confidence of his teammates and coaches. But that hasn’t stopped the Washington Commanders from preparing for rookie Jaxson Dart entering Week 1. This past week, the Washington defense schemed for both quarterbacks — just in case Daboll decides to give the rookie some live action. We might not actually see Dart on Sunday, but the Giants have been throwing everything at him, treating him almost like a starter.
Dart’s first training camp had a distinctly Bill Belichickian feel. Daboll spent years on Belichick’s Patriots staffs, and he’s borrowing some old tricks to test the rookie: having him hear plays shouted from the sideline instead of through a headset, making him go out for the pregame coin toss with no warning, and dropping him into uncomfortable practice situations just to see how he responds.
That’s the philosophy Daboll learned in New England: Make practice chaotic, and Sundays start to feel easier.
So far, Dart has weathered it all. One source close to the Giants told me the rookie “can handle the moment.” His early poise hasn’t surprised the team, but it has impressed them. His personality is said to be a perfect match for Daboll, and he’s soaked up all of the guidance and coaching he can, both from the staff and the team’s veteran QBs.
And with one of the sharpest offensive minds in football guiding the 22-year-old, the quarterback subplot in New York is only heating up. If losses mount during a brutal early schedule, urgency will rise, and the pressure on Wilson’s starting job will only grow.
The Jaxson Dart era might not just be part of a future story. It could begin very soon.
I am not a big fan of a backup quarterback getting a package of plays each week. Did it really help Arch Manning learn to be a quarterback last season when Texas used him situationally as a glorified running back? Would it really help Dart to enter games and run a couple of RPOs or zone reads, then go back to the sideline?
I don’t think it would, but we might see it anyway. The Giants apparently have a “Dart package” in the game plan.
Like I said, Daboll isn’t going to hesitate to get Dart on the field.
Burying the past
The Giants have started six of the last eight seasons 0-2 or worse. Running back Tyrone Tracy doesn’t want to hear about it. Why? Because to the players on the 2025 Giants that means nothing.
“To start off with, you’re talking about years past. You’re talking about eight years ago. That has nothing to do with what we have going on right now. You’re talking about we started slow eight years in a row. That has nothing to do with the people we have on our team,” Tracy said. “The people we have on our team weren’t here eight years ago. Do you understand what I’m saying? So, it really doesn’t matter what happened last year or what happened two years ago. Just like my personal stats from last year don’t matter right now. What I did in college doesn’t matter right now.
“Everything you’re talking about from the past, I understand we’ve got to get off to a fast start, but it has nothing to do with what we have going on right now. We’re trying to go out there and play our best ball for the first game of the 2025 season. Obviously, if you win that first game, it’s kind of a ripple effect into the next game. We’re trying to go out there and have a fast start. But with the stats of going back to the past, that has nothing to do with what we’re doing here.”
Tracy’s right. Sort of. Eight years ago doesn’t matter. There are a lot of players on the current roster who have been part of blowout losses in season openers the past two years. That should matter to them. Changing that pattern should matter to them.
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