The New York Giants made a big splash at the 2025 NFL draft on Thursday night when they traded back into the first round to nab Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart with the 25th overall pick.
That’s the good news. Now, Giants fans will have to temper their expectations when it comes to when Dart will play and how the team plans to bring him along. Head coach Brian Daboll has already done some of that by announcing that Russell Wilson will be the team’s starter come June’s mandatory minicamp.
General manager Joe Schoen told reporters on Saturday after the draft that the Giants will employ an acclimation process for Dart similar to the one they used for Josh Allen when he and Daboll were in Buffalo.
“Jaxson will get a fair amount of reps with the threes and maybe you’ll see him in there, sprinkle him in when he doesn’t even know he’s supposed to go in there just to see how he reacts being in a different atmosphere. He won’t know when or why. And then continue to work with the two older guys.
Again, it’s a little bit unique because you’ve got two quarterbacks (Wilson and Jameis Winston) that are just learning our system, so they’ve only had four meetings. So by the time Jax gets here, he’s not going to be too far behind, where sometimes you’ve got guys that have been in there for three, four, five years, and it’s good with Tommy (DeVito) in there because he has pretty good familiarity for what we need to do.
They have good chemistry in there right now with Shane (Tierney) and Kaf (Mike Kafka) in there when they’re talking about things, and they give their input from the experiences that they’ve had and Tommy gives input of this is how we’ve done it, and it’s been good. We’ll add Jax to the mix and we’ll have a plan to work with him each and every day.”
The Giants could very likely carry all four quarterbacks on their 53-man roster. As Schoen stated, Dart will be slowly integrated into the mix behind three players who all have extensive NFL experience. They don’t need to rush him, but at the same time, they don’t want to be forced to play him before he’s ready.
NFL DRAFT GRADES: Recap all NFL Draft picks, grades and analysis for all 32 teams.
Last year, they incurred injury upon injury to their quarterback room and their options became limited. Schoen’s overkill exercise this off-season pretty much ensures that won’t happen in 2025.
The issue could be pressed if the Giants are still losing with the veteran quarterbacks and/or Dart pops off the page in training camp and in workouts. His arrival pretty much has erased the mandate to win this year, however. The Giants want to get the quarterback position right for good and if takes enduring another lousy season, fans will understand.
