Giants QB Russell Wilson Gets Gutting Week 1 Prediction

The New York Giants have a strong and packed quarterback room heading into the 2025-26 season, which is a good thing, since last season, the team was only 3-14 and sat at the bottom of their conference.

Now, the Giants have veterans Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston, rookie Jaxson Dart and hometown personality Tommy DeVito. The team is still headed up by Brian Daboll, and he’s going to have to do more than musical chairs to make this the comeback season New Yorkers so want.

While Wilson is expected to be the starter this year, as September approaches, some in the NFL world are urging the team to step away from that idea. It’s possible that Wilson won’t even start in Week 1, which would be a surprise, given that he brings so much experience to the team.

Russell Wilson Prediction From Pro Football Talk

Wilson is the most experienced quarterback on the Giants’ roster right now, and he’s still in tip-top shape, even at 36 years old. He has appeared in two big games, Super Bowl XLVIII and Super Bowl XLIX, and won with the Seattle Seahawks at back in 2014. Sure, that was more than a decade ago, but not many signal-callers have that kind of a backstory.

In a July 5 feature for NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk, Mike Florio discusses quarterbacks who he believes are in the “hot seat” in 2025. “Plenty of them are feeling the heat, or should be, this season,” he notes in the piece.

Wilson is on this tally, but all fairness, pretty much every quarterback is here. Seriously, it seems as if half of the quarterbacks in the NFL made this tally.

For Wilson, what stands out is that Florio says that he believes Wilson shouldn’t start even in Week 1 if Dart is ready. In the piece, Florio states that if “Jaxson Dart lives up to his first-round draft stock,” then “Wilson shouldn’t be” the Week 1 starter. Even if Wilson starts, he says the “clock will be ticking. Immediately.”

Then, Florio makes an analogy, stating, “In 2004, the Giants benched Kurt Warner after nine games for Eli Manning, even though the Giants were 5-4 at the time. When Dart is ready, Dart will play. Even if Wilson makes it through 2025 without getting benched, he’ll have to do plenty to keep Dart on the sideline for 2026.”

Should the New York Giants Play Jaxson Dart Right Away?

Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz and Frank Schwab have also stated that they believe it would be good to have the rookie start earlier in the season, since he’s the future of the franchise.

However, it may be a bit dramatic to think that Wilson was signed by the New York Giants to be benched all season and that by starting Wilson it will hurt the team in the long run. It seems as if the Giants wouldn’t have signed Wilson, a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, if they didn’t have plans to use him. With that in mind, for the 2025-26 season, it still makes sense to have Wilson take the bulk of the team’s quarterback duties while training Dart for the future. But, should Dart take huge strides already, it’s not far-fetched to think of him starting in some games this season.