The future is now for the New York Giants.
News broke on Tuesday afternoon that rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart has been named the starter against the Los Angeles Chargers.
The move comes as the Giants fall to 0-3 on the season, including performances against the Washington Commanders and Kansas City Chiefs that saw them score just 15 points. All along, there have been calls for Dart to start following an excellent performance in the preseason in which he went 32 of 47, for 372 yards and 3 touchdowns to no interceptions. He showed off his athleticism, competitiveness, arm talent, and a level of football IQ that surprised those who didn’t study him closely in college.
But for as well as Dart played in the pre-season, the question remains:
Is he ready?
That’s the dilemma in which Brian Daboll has found himself. The Giants have (or perhaps “had”) a plan for developing Dart and likely wanted him to incubate at his own pace. They’ve been adamant that Dart has impressed at every step of the way and he had hit the marks they set for him over the summer.
However, the offense has been failing and fans were chanting “We Want Dart!” while Russell Wilson was on the field. So ready or not, the pressure was on to make the change.
So let’s take a closer look at Dart’s work in the preseason and see what he did well, as what he (hopefully) spent the last month working on.
What he needed to improve
Dart was incredibly exciting during the Giants’ preseason.
He absolutely earned all the excitement and hype generated against the Buffalo Bills, New York Jets, and New England Patriots. However, the good vibes and positive outcomes also served to cover up some real foundational that need to be addressed before Dart can be consistently successful in an NFL offense, against NFL defenses.
Understanding when to be loose
The Giants don’t want to be rigidly mechanical in their offense. They need to maintain a level of flexibility and fluidity in their play to allow them to adapt on the fly. But there’s a time and a place to go out of structure, and Dart needs to learn that NFL offenses require a certain amount of fidelity to the structure in order to function as intended. Going outside of the structure of the play, or riffing unnecessarily, can make life harder on his teammates and hurt the offense as a whole.
For example, let’s take a look at this second-down play against the Patriots. Dart had just been sacked for a 6-yard loss on first down, and ultimately found Greg Dulcich for a 13-yard gain on a crossing route.
The Giants are in a 3×2 set, with Dulcich as the middle receiver.
Dart checks Beaux Collins (8) in the slot on the bottom of the screen first, but quickly moves off the read. That was the correct read and not the problem here, nor is going to Dulcich on the crossing route.
The problem comes when Dart holds the ball and starts to scramble.
Dulcich runs a good route, as does Gunner Olszewski who creates a rub to create separation for Dulcich. The tight end breaks open almost immediately, with plenty of room to run after the catch, possibly set up a 3rd and short or even pick up the first down.
But as we see, Dart holds the ball and scrambles. That puts his linemen in a bad position as he abandons the pocket. Stone Foresythe draws a holding penalty as the defender attempts to disengage and pursue Dart, and the right tackle grabs to prevent him from hitting his quarterback. That holding penalty not only wipes out a 13-yard gain, but turns a 2nd and 16 into a 2nd and 24.
Earlier in the game, Dart did a similar riff on a deep pass to Jalin Hyatt. Hyatt dropped the pass — it was a bad drop, no doubt about that — but Dart executed the wrong type of misdirection in the moment that the catch harder and nearly put the ball in danger.
Dart hits the top of his drop as Hyatt executes a double-move, getting the corner to stop his feet. He’s open at this point, but it’s still a bit early to throw the pass. Dart needs to hold the deep safety to maximize the catch window and give Hyatt as good a chance as possible to make the play.
Dart needs to hold the safety in the middle of the field for another second. Rather than using his eyes, perhaps looking to Skattebo or Olszewski around the first-down marker, Dart opts for a pump-fake Hyatt’s way. That triggers the safety to start closing on the deep route, which could have led to a big hit on the receiver or the defender making a play on the ball in the air.
Again, it isn’t Darts’ fault that the deep shot didn’t work. However, his process was flawed as well, and flawed in a way that could have been exploited by a veteran.
One of of the other significant foundational issues that Dart showed in the preseason was in his footwork. Dart’s feet weren’t necessarily bad, however they had a bit of a tendency to become decoupled with his drops and the timing of the play.
Modern NFL offenses are highly choreographed, with routes precisely timed to break open at certain times to manipulate defenses and maximize separation. Quarterbacks use their footwork as the metronome to time their progressions and throws, as well as their depth within the pocket. Receivers expect the ball at a certain time and a certain point in their routes, and plays can break down if the quarterback can’t get in sync.
Rather than taking a classic rhythm drop — such as a 3-step or 5-step drop — Dart shuffles back in the pocket. Because he sort-of skips instead of steps, he hits his back foot early, which rushes his progression. Judging by Dart’s eyes, the two receivers on the bottom of the field (Montrell Washington and Lil’Jordan Humphrey) are the first two reads, with Dulcich being the third. Because Dart is so far ahead of the receivers, he’s off of Washington (who does work open) and throws to Dulcich before he’s ready for the ball. The result is an ugly miss on third down, when a bit more patience and rhythm could have converted the first down.
These types of plays are a holdover from Ole Miss’ offense, which was much more loose and fluid than what Dart will be asked to do in the NFL. Kiffin’s offense frequently involved creating space and then Dart leading receivers to the open field. He quarterbacked “by feel”, and rewriting those habits to play with timing and precision will take work and reps.
What he did well
As I said, Dart did quite a few things very well in the preseason and definitely earned the excitement from the fanbase and media.
For example, his 28-yard touchdown pass to Lil’Jordan Humphrey showed a number of good physical and mental traits.
Dart quickly diagnoses the defense, understanding that he has a one-on-one matchup on the left. He uses a subtle thigh tap to his hip to signal to Humphrey that he should run the vertical route, then makes a show of going through his progression on the underneath routes to hold the safety in the middle of the field. He also moves in the pocket, adjusting his launch angle and buying an extra instant with pressure in his face.
Later in the game he makes a similar play for an 18-yard gain in the middle of the field.
Dart identifies the defense’s late shift, recognizing that it’s a middle of field closed coverage with zone underneath. Armed with that information, he knows that the square-in run by slot Montrell Washington will find a void between the deep safety and the linebackers. Once again, Dart flows within the pocket, keeping a good rhythm while also using his eyes to hold the linebacker and expand the void in coverage. He delivers a good pass to Washington, leading him down and away from the safety coming up to deliver a hit.
We see a similar process the next week against the Jets.
Dart is in an empty set, operating in the no-huddle early in the third quarter. He executes a short drop, playing with good rhythm while quickly scanning the defense. Based on the coverage, he knows that the deep curl from the slot will find a void in the middle of the field, but doesn’t lock on to the route early. Instead, he works his progressions from left to right before delivering the ball to Washington for a 19-yard gain. It’s an accurate pass, but he also has to deliver it with velocity to ensure that it gets to the receiver before Jets’ defenders can close the receiving window.
And finally, while Dart does needed to get better at understanding when to go out of structure, he is very capable of making plays out of structure.
This might have been Dart’s finest play of the preseason.
The Patriots line up in quarters coverage, but appear to have different pattern-matching rules on either side of the field. They have pure zone coverage on the offensive left, while they appear to have MEG (man everywhere he goes) rules on the offensive right.
Dart attempts to stay within the structure of the offense, going through his progressions and attempting to help the receivers on the offensive left work free against the zone. He then moves off them and scrambles as the rush moves past him in the pocket. He then finds Gunner Olszewski on the scramble drill, which turns into a 50-yard catch and run. It’s an excellent example of Dart keeping his head as things get chaotic, as well as using his athleticism and baseball background to find his receiver off-platform and on the move.
Final thoughts
I started off by stating that Brian Daboll may be finding himself squarely on the horns of a dilemma.
As I sit here, I don’t know how onerous that dilemma is, or if there even is one. It’s possible that Dart has made significant progress on his bad habits over the last month and is nearing the point where he’s legitimately ready to take the keys to the franchise.
On the other hand, there could be a real risk if Dart isn’t ready but is forced onto the field. His long-term growth could be slowed or stunted if the speed and stress of a real NFL game cause him to revert to college habits. All the excitement and goodwill around Dart will evaporate in an instant if he struggles. Don’t forget, it was only a few months ago that Dart was viewed as an over-drafted “Hail Mary”, a mediocre-at-best prospect whose collegiate production was a function of Lane Kiffin’s system and wilted against good competition.
Commentators and frustrated fans will revert to their priors on Dart with a quickness if he struggles out of the gate. All the positivity and excitement around him will evaporate if he starts and isn’t successful.
It’s possible, perhaps even likely, that the decision to start Dart is a desperation move by Daboll. It has recently been reported that he’s “hanging on by a thread”, and moving to Dart could be a play to buy more time for himself.
On the flip side, it’s also possible that Daboll’s seat is actually quite cool. The Giants’ brass could be treating this as a transitional year — a “Year Zero” for the next era of New York Giants football, and not a “must-win” Year 4. It’s possible that 2022 through 2024 are the “Long Gettleman Years”, and 2025 represents a fresh start and the break-point from the Accorsi lineage which had moldered for over a decade.
We’ll find out soon whether Dart has improved his on the foundational issues in his game in the month since the preseason. Ideally, the Giants will alter their offense to play to Dart’s strengths while limiting the exposure of his weaknesses. He excels at Run-Pass Option plays (RPOs), and also has good arm strength and great touch throwing down the field. The Giants clearly want to be aggressive, and that will almost certainly remain a major element of their offense.
It will be fascinating to see how else the offense evolves under Dart, as well as how he plays against a 3-0 Chargers team.
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