New York is betting on coach Brian Daboll just as much as Jaxson Dart
My favorite team, the New York Giants, drafted a quarterback in the first round of the NFL draft. I should be happy. Instead, I have been haunting my group chats like a wraith.
So here I am texting my Giants group chats like Debbie Downer at Disney World, asking the Pluto mascot if they’re afraid of dying in a terrorist attack. I am honestly, earnestly, sincerely wondering if there is something wrong with me and my inability to find joy in the Giants drafting this long-lost Logan Paul brother.
I want to be excited about the Giants drafting Jaxson Dart. I’m just not.
The Giants drafting Jaxson Dart feels as much of a bet on head coach Brian Daboll as it is a bet on Dart himself. Considering that Daboll inherited a Joe Judge team that went 4-13, and three years later the Giants are 3-14, that is a curious move. The Giants are hoping Daboll can develop Dart like he did Josh Allen—or at least that Daboll can do for Dart what Sean Payton did for Bo Nix. But is Dart anywhere near Allen as a prospect? Is Daboll anywhere near Payton as a coach? But perhaps most importantly: Does Daboll even have the job security to see this process through? Did the Giants choose Dart because they see something in him that nobody else does, or because they are even more desperate than the Browns, Jets, Saints, and Steelers, who also need quarterbacks but have front offices and coaches with more job security? It just feels like the Giants are half in on their GM and coach, and the GM and coach are half in on Dart.
Zoom out and what the Giants did is smart. They took the elite blue chip defensive end first in Penn State pass rusher Abdul Carter, rather than forcing the quarterback pick at no. 3. Come back into the first round and acquire your quarterback of the future for just the price of a third-rounder this year and a third-rounder next year. It’s a good plan. Nobody will ever care about the two-third rounders if Dart ends up the Giants’ long-term QB. As Giants GM Joe Schoen said at the combine, he’s for “taking swings at” the QB position (ignore the fact that when Schoen said that, the Giants quite literally had no quarterbacks on the roster).
Dart’s underlying metrics and profile—a quarterback who pushes the ball downfield while avoiding sacks and turnovers—suggest he is a steal this late in the first round. Add in the fact that the Giants snagged Carter, creating a redemption arc for the team after 2021 when they traded back to get Kadarius Toney instead of sitting there and taking Micah Parsons, and this first round should feel like a coup.
It is worth being humble about quarterback evaluations. I made fun of Allen when he was drafted. I witnessed Sam Darnold win 14 games last year. When Bryce Young was benched for Andy Dalton last September, I would have bet you my life savings that he would not outplay C.J. Stroud from October on. The reason it’s worth throwing darts (I’m sorry) is that you never know which QBs will be good. The Giants, after all, declined to take Justin Herbert in 2020 because Daniel Jones was on the team.
Fundamentally, a team whose quarterbacks are 36-year-old Russell Wilson, 31-year-old Jameis Winston, and Tommy DeVito—a meme that was supposed to last three weeks that has now lasted three seasons—needs to take some swings at quarterback. New York’s course of action makes sense.
But think of it zoomed out like this: An embattled Giants general manager, fresh off his widely mocked Saquon Barkley decision, left the first round with a potentially elite defensive lineman and a franchise quarterback with grit, strong rushing ability, and beloved intangibles, though perhaps iffy processing at the NFL level and ability to keep his eyes downfield under pressure.
I’m not talking about Thursday night. The above paragraph is about the 2019 NFL draft, when Giants GM Dave Gettleman, a year off taking Saquon second, grabbed Daniel Jones with the sixth pick and defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence with the 17th pick (Gettleman also traded back into the first round for cornerback DeAndre Baker, who genuinely might be the worst pick in franchise history). Six years later, history may not be repeating, but it’s at least rhyming.
Sometimes we use the term “paint by numbers” offense as a derogatory term for a QB like Kirk Cousins who does exactly what coaches tell him but struggles to create on their own. Dart’s college offense at Ole Miss under Lane Kiffin is more like fingerpainting by numbers. Without exaggeration, most of Ole Miss’s offense comes down to about five different plays run over and over again, staged and dressed to look different in pre-snap formations. As PFF noted, just two out of every five plays Dart ran last year did NOT involve an RPO, play-action, or a screen. In other words, dropback passing was few and far between, and even those looks were simplified. Like Derek Zoolander’s faces—Blue Steel, Ferrari, La Tigra—they’re all the same look.
Dart seems to struggle when his first read is not there, often scrambling when he sees something he did not expect. Because he’s a good scrambler, this often looked good. But considering Dart was in Ole Miss’s offense for three years, it’s a little concerning how infrequently he was able to work to Plan B and Plan C on a given play. As Nate Tice touched on at Yahoo Sports, Dart’s ability to attack a defense frequently faltered in the second half of games as defenses adjusted to Ole Miss’s concepts as designed by Kiffin. Tice notes:
- Dart’s first-half sack rate: 5 percent (42nd nationally)
- Dart’s first-half pressure-to-sack rate: 15.5 percent (33rd)
- Dart’s second-half sack rate: 9 percent (73rd)
- Dart’s second-half pressure-to-sack rate: 24.6 percent (71st)
In other words, Dart was executing the gameplan Kiffin came up with against teams each week, and it worked, because Kiffin is a gifted play designer. But when defenses adjusted midgame to mitigate Plan A, Kiffin seemed unwilling to adjust the calls, and Dart seemed unable to take advantage of Plan B or C. If you’re wondering what I mean by the simplistic offense, watch this video of Dart showing Jon Gruden his snap count.
The result of all this is that in 2024 you have Ole Miss ending up with no fourth-quarter points against a bad Kentucky team, ultimately losing 20-17. Six points in the second half against LSU to end up losing in overtime. A horrific second half against Florida where Ole Miss managed just a field goal in the final half to lose by seven. In Ole Miss’s biggest moments, Dart didn’t just come up short—at times, he seemed like the problem.
If Dart is still struggling to get to second and third reads after three years of playing for Kiffin, what is the expectation that he will be able to learn the NFL game in a few years under Daboll? And so the bet becomes less about Dart’s ability and more about Daboll being a better teacher than Kiffin.
Daboll has already said Dart reminds him of Allen. This feels generous at best. Dart is shorter, slower, lighter, less powerful as a runner, and brings much less throwing ability. The main thing Dart and Allen have in common is willingness to take hits. Frankly, the player Dart has more in common with is Jones, another quarterback that has “deceptive” speed as a runner and is willing to get crushed by defenders. Jones, like Dart, is willing to stand in the pocket and get rocked, but that ability can get confused with being good under pressure. In reality, both Jones and Dart have a weakness where once pressure enters the pocket, they struggle to reset their eyes downfield, and instead just take off as a rusher. At times when Jones was in New York, I felt he was so oblivious to what was going on around him in the pocket that I would lay awake at night, concerned that he would get hit by a car while he was crossing the street in Hoboken.
The simplicity of Dart’s offense suggests it would be best for him to sit for a large portion, if not the entirety, of the 2025 season and learn the NFL game. The Giants seem to agree, as they have already named Wilson the starter.
There is absolutely a world where Daboll is able to teach Dart the NFL ropes, he sits for a year, and then takes over in 2026 as a 23-year old starter with the mobility to extend plays and get first downs with his legs, the arm strength to make NFL throws, and the Daboll aided-acumen to make the right decisions. The question is what kind of commitment the Giants have to this timeline. Allen had far more upside than Dart, and frankly, Allen kind of sucked for two full seasons until he came out firing in year three. Payton and Nix managed a rookie of the year-esque campaign, but Payton is a Hall of Fame-caliber coach and Nix had the most starting experience in the history of college football.
Perhaps just as importantly, in Denver, Payton is judge, jury, and executioner. In New York, if the Giants falter in September and October, Daboll’s clout will be merely sitting on the jury, and he may be held in contempt. If the Giants start poorly with Wilson and Winston, will Daboll be pressured to play Dart ahead of schedule to prove there’s been progress, even if it risks stunting Dart’s development? Would the Giants keep Daboll through a five-win season if Dart looks good in two weeks of December? There are far worse things in the NFL than keeping organizational stability, as the worst franchises churn through GMs and coaches constantly. The Giants still have a pairing in Schoen and Daboll that came in together, and there’s something to be said for letting them get a crack at a quarterback they picked. But there’s also the fear that a horrible season means the next group could be hired to save Dart—restarting the cycle of bringing in a new coach and GM to save the underwhelming incumbent quarterback.
The Giants owners are aware of this dynamic. Perhaps the Dart pick indicates Daboll has the security to see this project through. Perhaps that could be prudent for a team who once nearly fired Tom Coughlin after 2006 before he led the team to a championship over the undefeated Patriots in 2007. But for all intents and purposes, the Giants aren’t throwing a dart with Jaxson. Daboll is the one they are betting can hit the bullseye.
Danny is the host of ‘The Ringer Fantasy Football Show.’ He’s been covering the NFL since 2016.
