The press conference to introduce the Giants’ new franchise quarterback was minutes away from starting when a striking athlete walked into team’s auditorium. He was wearing a beige T-shirt with professional wrestler Triple H emblazoned on the front. The back two inches of his hair were bleached a lighter shade than the rest of his blonde hair, leading one member of the media — okay, it was me — to let out an audible gasp.
“Jaxson Dart has a frosted mullet?!”
Alas, while this was a Dart, it was the Dart. This was the quarterback’s younger brother, Diesel, a high school receiver in the class of 2027 who is already receiving Division 1 scholarship offers. The two brothers get mistaken for each other all the time, proud mom Kara Dart said on Friday, while father Brandon nodded to his younger offspring and noted, “His time will come.”
The Dart family filled half the front row of the auditorium, with mom recording the press conference on her phone. Jaxson, for the record, was dressed more appropriately for the occasion in a tan-and-blue blazer with the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone. When asked about playing in the New York market, he had told us less than 24 hours earlier, “I’m built for it.”
If confidence alone could win football games, well, the Giants are set for the next decade.
“Quite honestly, this is kind of what I expected,“ Dart said when asked about being only one of two quarterbacks taken in the first round of this NFL Draft. ”As a competitor, you see yourself as the best anytime that you’re going to step on the field. If you don’t see it that way, then especially as a quarterback, the team is not going to believe in you at the highest level.”
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: I have no idea if Jaxson Dart is going to become the franchise quarterback that the Giants so desperately need. Neither does the man who drafted him, general manager Joe Schoen, or the man who now has to develop him, head coach Brian Daboll. If he was a safe bet to succeed at the most demanding position in professional sports, he would have been picked much higher than No. 25 overall — and, even then, he would be no lock.
Ask Jets fans how it worked out the last time a local team grabbed a Utahn in the first round and threw him the keys to the franchise. They are still scarred from the Zach Wilson Era — and the team is still picking through the rubble from that one failed decision.
But it is easy to see why the Giants, especially Daboll, were willing to push their chips to the center of the table with this quarterback. They were going to have to take a chance on somebody, and in Dart, they have drafted a player with both an impressive resume from his three seasons at Ole Miss and a swagger to match.
“Know this: He has it,” Clay Helton, his first college coach at Southern Cal, told a newspaper in Mississippi last year. “He’s the type of guy you’re looking for. There’s good quarterbacks out there, but not all of them have it. And I can’t explain that to you. But he has it, which is a championship mindset.”
No one will care about Dart’s personality if he can’t succeed at this level. Eli Manning might be everyone’s crazy uncle these days on TV, but for his 16 seasons in the NFL, his off-the-field persona could be best described as a human shrug emoji. His successor, Daniel Jones, didn’t fail to fill his shoes because he was a bland interview; he was run out of town because he kept throwing the football to the wrong colored jerseys.
Still, there is something refreshing about a quarterback with a little pizzazz, with a presence, with some passion. Dart promised that he would lean on Manning, a family friend, for advice about playing quarterback in the New York/New Jersey market — “I would be a fool not to,” he said — but here’s hoping that Manning doesn’t encourage him to soften his edge. It is authentic.
“As a competitor, you want to play on the biggest stages,” Dart said. “You want to play in front of the most passionate fans, for the most world-renowned program and organization. That’s just kind of what I wanted to be a part of. I just feel like I’m built for it.”
Again: We’ll see if the words match the reality. Dart will start his career behind veterans Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston, but it won’t be long before he is thrown into the fire as a rookie if the woeful Giants’ offense of the last few seasons doesn’t improve.
The 21-year-old passer will have the weight of an entire franchise and the fate of Schoen and Daboll riding on his shoulders. It would be a lot for anyone to handle. Dart doesn’t seem the least bit phased by that pressure, and if you’re looking for reasons to hope that he’s really the guy, it’s a good place to start.
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Steve Politi may be reached at [email protected].
