Jaxson Dart will start at quarterback on Monday for the New York Giants when they face the New England Patriots, interim head coach Mike Kafka confirmed on Friday. Dart cleared the NFL’s concussion protocol on Thursday after missing two games.
As evidenced by the hearty debate in a recent Big Blue View post in ‘The Feed,’ that is not something that will make every Giants fans happy.
Dart, a rookie quarterback who was the team’s No. 25 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, has not played since being diagnosed with a concussion at the end of the third quarter of a Week 10 loss to the Chicago Bears.
Jameis Winston started both of those games, and played well despite the Giants going 0-2.
The Giants’ only two victories this season have come with Dart at quarterback. This will mark Dart’s first start since the firing of Brian Daboll as head coach, which took place the day after the loss to the Bears.
Dart leads all NFL quarterbacks with seven rushing touchdowns. He is third in the league among quarterbacks in rushing yards per game. The 22-year-old’s willingness and ability to protect himself from the volume of hits he had been taken is sure to be a focus for the Giants going forward.
Offensive coordinator Tim Kelly addressed the idea on Friday of learning as a quarterback when to take risks and when to avoid them.
“I think that’s a big part of playing quarterback in this league, especially starting quarterbacks. Especially guys that have his mobility, his mindset, his really understanding the value of being available,” Kelly said.
“And you’re never going to take that mindset away from him. That’s the main reason as to why he is who he is but being able to understand when you need to put the cape on and when it’s okay to go ahead and slide. So again, I think that’s part of the process for these younger quarterbacks coming into the league, is just understanding, you always have that mindset of, I’m going to do everything I can to go get that last yard. Well, a yard with 12 minutes to go in the first quarter is a little bit different than a yard to go with 10 seconds to go in the game. So being able to have some situational awareness there and understand when we need him to put the cape on and when he needs to protect himself.”
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