“He is a running back first … We gotta go out and hit him, fellas.”
That was Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn talking to his players last week about New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart, as captured the HBO ‘Hard Knocks’ cameras.
As he has just about everything else this season, except being hauled off the field by officials for what seem like weekly concussion checks, Dart shrugged off the comments from Quinn. He said the remarks will “absolutely not” change anything for him.
“(Georgia head coach) Kirby Smart said the exact same thing every time that he played against me,” Dart said. “So did (former Alabama head coach) Nick Saban, so did every coach that I played in college. So, this is nothing new. Just try to go out there and play smart, and be available for your team.
“This isn’t a new thing that’s been brought up in my career.”
Dart isn’t watching ‘Hard Knocks’, but he said he certainly doesn’t mind that other teams are talking about how to deal with him.
“It just gets me excited. I mean, just as a competitor, you want to go out there and compete. And obviously, they’re acknowledging respect in a way, too,” Dart said. “So, I appreciate that. You want to go out there and play really good for your team. And I think any time that there’s teams that are game planning and they definitely give respect to a player, I think it’s for a reason.”
Dart was as down after Sunday’s loss to Washington as he has been at any time in his rookie season. It was hard to fault him after the Giants lost their eighth straight game to fall to 2-12.
Wednesday, Dart was taking a longer, more optimistic, view.
“I think that I definitely have an optimistic perspective on where this place is going to be eventually. And I think that every road is not the same. So, you’re going to face some struggle, but I know that when we get to a certain point, I’m going to appreciate a lot of the adversity that was faced,” Dart said. “Because you’re going to enjoy and understand how hard it is to win in this league. So, I’m definitely optimistic, and fortunately for me, I’m really young. So, there’s time to make adjustments, and obviously we want it now and a lot of things haven’t really gone our way this year. But I know that eventually we’re going to reach the place that we want to be.”
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