Grand opening, grand closing. After just three games under center for the New York Giants, veteran quarterback Russell Wilson has been sent to the bench in favor of rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart, who the team traded up to draft in the first round this past April.
This feels surprising, considering Wilson turned the clock back and torched the Dallas Cowboys in a Week 2 overtime loss, but that’s a feat that admittedly became less impressive after the Cowboys played their next game. Coming off a third straight loss to start the season, Giants head coach Brian Daboll is hitting the red button on a last-ditch effort to save his job — the dice roll of a rookie quarterback.
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This moment was going to happen this season, but the Giants decided to make this change now and get a head start on the Dart era. A lot is hinging on the success of this run, or at least the progress Dart shows as a quarterback, because Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen are running out of chances to turn the Giants around. Even though they managed the 37-point scoring outburst against the Cowboys, the Giants still rank among the worst offenses in the league. According to TruMedia, they ranked 31st in dropback success rate (37.5%), 25th in points per drive (1.73) and 31st in third-down percentage (27.5%). That’s including the Cowboys game.
There was no point in doing this for an entire season, so the Giants pulled the cord on Wilson (potentially ending his career as a starter) to see if they can find a spark with Dart. The rookie had a couple of quality outings in the preseason, showing he at least has the athletic traits to be an NFL starter. Patience doesn’t exist nowadays when it comes to evaluating rookie quarterbacks, but the Giants seem very excited about Dart’s chances of becoming their long-term solution — or they’re at least presenting like they are.
Either way, the reality of their situation will hit soon when they line up against the 3-0 Los Angeles Chargers this weekend. The idea that the Giants, or any team, should wait for an easy opponent to start their rookie quarterback has always been silly because one bad game doesn’t define a career. That being said, this is a brutal first game for Dart.
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The Chargers boast one of the best defenses in the NFL through the first three weeks of the season. They rank first in both opposing success rate (32.3%) and opposing dropback success rate (32.5%) and rank first in percentage of plays that go for zero or fewer yards (39.8%). From just about every angle possible, they come into the game with a major advantage over the Giants. But New York needs to see if Dart can stay afloat and make a few plays this weekend, build a base to grow from for the rest of the season and then evaluate week by week.
Eventually, Dart is probably going to need to stack some wins in order to keep Daboll and Schoen employed. That shouldn’t be the expectation Sunday.
Just look competent and survive the storms the Chargers send. It can’t really get that much worse for the Giants, especially coming off that abysmal showing against the Chiefs. The move to bench Russell Wilson and start Jaxson Dart suggests as much.
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