Brian Daboll Claims Final Say on QB Switch to Jaxson Dart

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll confirmed that rookie Jaxson Dart will be the starting quarterback for the rest of the season, with Russell Wilson, whom Dart is replacing, serving as the backup and Jameis Winston, as he’s done so far, as the emergency quarterback.

“I met both with Russ yesterday and Jackson privately, and Russ was nothing but a pro, which I would expect him to be,” Daboll told reporters during a press briefing before the team’s Wednesday practice.

“It's my decision. We're going with Jaxson. We're going to get him ready to play this week and for the remainder of the season. He's gonna do everything he can. Russ will be the backup. The conversations that I've had with these young men will be private.

“All I can tell you is we're going with Jaxson and we're getting ready to play, so I'm not gonna add too much to it.”

Daboll, who refused to disclose the conversations he had with both Dart and Wilson, said the focus was on getting the rookie ready to play to the best of his abilities.

“I think it'll be a work in progress relative to him playing in his first game,” Daboll said of Dart, who up until this point had only been inserted into the game on a handful of snaps in which he ran the ball or handed it off.

“There will be some things that he hasn't seen. We'll do our best to accommodate him within our scheme. It's going to take everybody – it's going to take the offensive line and the defense's kicking game. He just needs to go out there and do his job, make good decisions, throw the ball where he needs to throw it, make loose plays, and take care of it.

“He doesn't have to do any more than that. There'll be some, you know, there'll be some, a lot of things to learn from.”

Daboll refused to discuss any potential conversations he may have had with team ownership or general manager Joe Schoen regarding the decision, but this certainly contradicts the earlier insistence by general manager Joe Schoen and Daboll that they would allow Dart as much of a redshirt year as possible.

Are New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll ton the same page regarding the decision to play Jaxson Dart? | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

When asked if Schoen and ownership were on the same page with him, Daboll avoided directly answering the question.

“We have conversations–we've said this numerous times,” he said. “I have plenty of conversations. That's the direction that I wanted to go, and that's the direction that we're going to go. There were good conversations we had. Those are private conversations, like I said before. But ultimately it comes down to me and the decision that I made.”

Daboll also denied a report by ESPN’s Adam Schefter saying that there was “no sense of urgency” to switch to Dart, claiming it didn’t come from him, which further raises a question as to whether all parties are on the same page.

With the team starting 0-3, the move to Dart has been viewed by some as a panic move by Daboll, who, with each loss, sees the seat under him grow hotter. Daboll’s thinking, perhaps, is that if he’s going to go down with the ship, he’s going to do so with the quarterback he handpicked.

Daboll, however, was curt with his reply when asked how much the team’s current record contributed to the decision.

“Look, I did it,” he snapped. “I'm not going to get into the specifics, like I said before. I think it's the right thing for our football team, and that's why I'm doing it.”

“It's a long season,” he added when further pressed about whether he made the decision to save his job. “We've had three games. Haven't put it together all collectively and made the decision to play Jaxson.”

Daboll, who in the past has said Dart has worked with the show team, explained that the rookie has had some preparation for his increased role.

“He does every rep of the call sheet and the practice, every practice, after practice. There's a group that stays out here, and he goes through the entire practice, if you will,” he said.

But, he added, those reps haven’t been with the first team offensive players with whom Dart will be working this week.

“He does it with the other skill guys that maybe haven't gotten many reps. But he's got to go through the play, visualize it, see it, so that's part of the plan that we've used with him since we started playing in the regular season,” Daboll said.

Interestingly, Daboll, who has been literally attached to Dart’s side since the kid walked in the front door, said he’s not planning to take over the play calling to ensure Dart has success.

”I have confidence in (assistant head coach/offensive coordinator) Mike (Kafka),” he said. “Those guys have met with Jaxson along with me. They've met separately. We're going to do everything we can to help Jaxson be as good as he can play.”

Dart, as the backup to Wilson, isn’t believed to have taken many practice reps with the starters up until this week, something he also didn’t do a lot of during training camp and in the preseason either.

So when asked why he thought the rookie was ready to play, Daboll said, “I don't think any rookie quarterback is ever just ready to play. You put him in there because you think that he's done enough to show you that he can go out there and compete, and he's done that every step of the way. That’s why I made the decision.”

Time will, of course, tell if the decision is the right one.

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