Are the Giants Playing With Fire by Turning to Jaxson Dart This Soon?

Desperate times call for desperate mesaures and the 0-3 Giants, in flipping the switch to rookie Jaxson Dart, sure do appear desperate. But is it the right move?

New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart | Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images

You just knew that the New York Giants’ decision to flip the switch on the official start of the Jaxson Dart era was coming sooner rather than later.

Had things gone according to the Giants' plan, that day would have come later–much later–than it has.

But after three losses, two of which the Russell Wilson-led offense has badly struggled in situational football (red zone, third down, goal-to-go), Giants head coach Brian Daboll, who is personally leading the Dart developmental project, has decided that the rookie is ready for the bright lights and big stage of being an NFL starting quarterback.

The question though–and one to which we probably won’t ever get the real answer from the usually tight lipped Daboll–is if Dart is truly ready for what he’s about to take on or is this move being viewed through blue-colored glasses worn to shield the rising panic brought on by a season that is fast slipping away and which is potentially threatening the job security of those heading the football side of the house.

Is Jaxson Dart truly ready for the bright lights?

Sep 14, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart (6) in action against the Dallas Cowboys during the second half at AT&T | Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images

Determining when a player, especially one as important as a quarterback, is ready is subjective. There’s no written exam in which the final score tells you that the player is ready for the twists and turns that accompany a football game, which get magnified when a young player is at the helm.

All a coach can go by is what he sees on the practice field and in the classroom. And considering that Daboll, who is supposed to be a quarterback whisperer, felt comfortable enough to anoint the former Ole Miss signal caller as the backup to now former starter Russell Wilson, Dart has apparently checked both of those boxes.

That said, as the QB2 for the first three weeks, Dart couldn’t have taken very many practice reps with the starters against the starters. This isn’t training camp, where there is time to play around with different lineups and looks. 

Still, Daboll, who is set to speak with the media later today, will probably recite the same answers he’s given about Dart all along: that the kid has made progress, that he has confidence in him, and so on.

Sort of like what he says about every player on the roster, where actions speak louder than words.  

A Giant leap of faith

Although Daboll works with Dart every day, no one will really know how ready the kid is until he gets out there on the field against a live defense that has gameplanned against the Giants, something Dart did not face during the summer when most of the opponents he faced barely played their starters (if at all) and most certainly didn’t game plan.

The Giants recall that in 2019, they were in a similar situation. Eli Manning, on the tail end of his career, got the team off to a 0-2 start, a record that wasn’t totally his fault. 

But then head coach Pat Shurmur, in a rush to open up his playbook to incorporate things that he felt an aging Manning couldn’t do as well as rookie first-round draft pick Daniel Jones could, ushered in the Jones era by the third game of the season in what was a desperation move to save his job.

Jones, as a rookie, flashed, but at the end of the season, his showing wasn’t enough to save Shurmur from being shown the door. In the meantime, Jones embarked on an odyssey, during which he seemingly had a new offensive coordinator every year and a new head coach every other year.

In the end, Jones’s time with the Giants ended not with him hoisting a Lombardi trophy, but with him being benched, demoted, and eventually cut, leaving the Giants in a huge hole at the most important position.  

Then you have success stories such as Washington’s Jayden Daniels, the unquestioned starter from Day 1 with the Commanders, who were afforded the patience and luxury of having a new coaching staff to help Daniels’s transition.

The Giants? No such luck. Daboll is in the fourth year of a five-year contract. If this sudden rush to Dart doesn’t produce wins, his fate will undoubtedly be the same as Shurmur’s.

And what about Dart? From what is known about the kid, he seems more than ready from a maturity perspective to handle what’s about to be unleashed on him. 

But so too was Jones as a rookie, only to have his struggles while trying to figure out the game and being under pressure to win games to help save his job.

It’s a gamble, no question. An unexpected one that the Giants had hoped to have to take this early, and one that, quite frankly, won’t fix the other problems responsible for the team’s 0-3 start, which makes it almost unfair to heap the future of this fast-sinking 2025 Giants season on one young man’s shoulders.

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