Jaxson Dart hasn’t played one game, hasn’t taken one snap for the New York Giants. Truth is, he hasn’t been fitted for a helmet yet because he just got selected by the team – improbably, some might say – less than 12 hours ago.

And yet everything feels different.

Dart Addition Brings Hope For Future

The Giants came into Thursday’s NFL draft as one of the league’s worst and perhaps most hopeless franchises. 

The good people that work for that team and have won a lot of games and accomplished a lot of things would cringe after reading that last sentence. But it’s a fact.

No team gets the third pick in the NFL draft because it is super successful unless that pick comes from some other lowly team in a trade. The Giants didn’t inherit their No. 3 pick, they earned every last bit of it with much failure and frustration and crisis last season.

But, again, it all feels different now.

It all feels … optimistic.

Positive.

Carter Good But Doesn’t Throw TD Passes

The only thing positive about the Giants before Thursday night was that I was positive they couldn’t possibly solve their chronic quarterback problem with their No. 3 overall pick.

And I was right. They didn’t.

The Giants instead added outstanding Penn State pass rusher Abdul Carter – an addition that might make New York’s defensive front the most talented in the NFC East and that includes the Super Bowl champion Eagles. Adding Carter was the right pick, but it doesn’t make the Giants certain winners.

You’ve got to have a very good quarterback to be a winner, no matter how good the defense is. And now New York has at least the promise of that in Dart.

General manager Joe Schoen came into Draft Day hoping this is how things would work out. He obviously told at least one of his sons, Carson, that he was going to try to somehow pick Dart.

Carson Schoen Moment On Social Media

Carson then started posting Dart videos all over his social media. It was innocent enough, but it got noticed.

Perhaps Carson didn’t realize that coach Brian Daboll likes club information locked up tight to the point he even ghosted Dart recently. 

“Yeah, so coach would text me a lot, and man, I would say, like two weeks ago, he kind of died off,” Dart said. “So I didn’t know what to expect.”

Schoen himself kinda-sorta hinted at what we should all expect right after picking Carter. He was asked 13 questions into a 17-question press conference if the Giants were done for the night.

“We’ll see,” Schoen responded sheepishly.

He wasn’t done.

Trade For Dart A Bargain

The Giants traded up from the second round with the Texans to add the 25th overall pick in the first round.

The cost for that higher pick, for selecting Dart, for adding hope where there was none before, was trading away a second-round pick, a comp pick in the third round, and another third in 2026.

Bargain.

Compare that to what happened one spot later. The Falcons also moved back into the first round from their perch in the second round by trading to the Rams their second-rounder, a seventh-rounder, and next year’s first-round pick.

Repeating: Next year’s first-round pick.

And, fair enough, the Falcons got back a third in the exchange. But the Giants still paid less for their quarterback of the future than the Falcons paid for a pass rusher.

Did Giants Ruin Rams’ Plans?

One more thing on the trade: The Giants traded into the spot just above the Rams. And the Rams, seeing New York’s move and pick of Dart, immediately traded down.

That was not a coincidence.

The Rams are year-to-year with starter Matthew Stafford. And NFL people believe they expected to take Dart with their pick had the Giants not intervened.

But as soon as the Giants did jump ahead and picked Dart, Rams coach Sean McVay, who knows quarterbacks as well as anyone, immediately exited the first round by fleecing Atlanta.

The Giants, meanwhile, could celebrate among themselves that they’ve finally done something they’ve been trying to do for two years and that is finding a quarterback that gives them hope for the future.

Schoen Can Decompress Until Friday 

“Yeah, it’s been exhausting, to be honest with you,” Schoen said. “We’ve been, whether it’s here all week and then you go on the road in the fall or all the way up to Easter weekend, we’re still on the road. Credit to the coaches, my staff, the film they watch, the area scouts pointing us in the correct direction on the quarterbacks to go see.

“Credit to them. I’m glad we were able to get a guy that we’re convicted on and we like. So yeah, it’s gratifying. I’ll probably on the ride home be able to decompress, but it was pretty stressful up there the last 15, 20 minutes trying to get this done.”

Schoen and the Giants will be back at it in the second round on Friday. So whatever amount of relaxing they do will be shortlived. But at least they can rest in the knowledge they have something now they haven’t really had for a couple of years now.

The Giants have given themselves hope.