When Jaxson Dart is Ready to Play, Why Should NY Giants Continue to Wait?

The Giants hoped to give QB Jaxson Dart a redshirt year. But if the quarterback continues to check off boxes, can the Giants afford to keep delaying making the switch?

New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

There’s a belief in the game of football that, regardless of level, the most popular player on a roster is the backup quarterback. And in the case of the New York Giants, such a statement has never held more truth.

Following a Week 1 clunker in which the Giants offense basically picked up where it left off last year in terms of struggling to score, there is a growing wave of voices urging the Giants to stop messing around with veteran Russell Wilson, who is not in the team’s long-term plans, and simply roll with rookie Jaxson Dart, who is in the long term plans. 

But would the Giants make such a move this early? General manager Joe Schoen has gone on record in the past as saying that ideally, the organization wants for Dart to sit and develop while Wilson and Jameis Winston do the heavy lifting.

But with Dart’s star having risen every week of training camp and the preseason, the rookie jumped ahead of Winston, who was signed with the intention of being the No.2 quarterback. 

That has put him in a position where every mistake Wilson makes while engineering an offense that returned 10 of its 11 starters from last season is magnified, while the ensuing calls for Dart grow louder and louder.

But the tightrope act that the Giants’ brass must walk is where to place the blame for any ineptness. Is the offense struggling because of the offensive line, which is making it difficult for the quarterback to overcome the added challenges?

Are the receivers not running the correct routes, getting open, or catching the balls within their catch radius? Is the running game demonstrating good vision and a sense of urgency in moving north and south?

Is it the play calling that’s putting the offense in a bad position? Or did the Giants' defense fail to keep up their end of the deal? 

Any of these questions can be true, which is why the Giants, in deciding when or if to make the switch, need to determine what the main factors are holding the offense back and whether a change at quarterback will mitigate those issues.

The Giants’ plan is believed to be one where they stick with Wilson for as long as they have a chance to make some noise in the division toward a postseason berth.

But if the Giants drop their Week 2 game to Dallas, that puts them in an 0-2 hole in both the standings and in the division, the biggest question Schoen and Daboll need to honestly address is simple.

If Dart is truly ready to play, how does keeping him on the bench help the team, regardless of what the record is and regardless of what week in the season we’re in?  

It doesn't. Which is yet another example of how the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

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