The New York Giants entered the 2025 NFL draft to find the best available prospect to become their future franchise quarterback.
In Ole Miss signal-caller Jaxson Dart, the team’s brass of general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll believed so strongly in Dart that Schoen was willing to part with his second-round pick and one of his third-rounders (leaving the team with just one pick on Day 2) and a third-round pick in the 2026 draft.
But for some, there are questions about the wisdom of the Giants having traded up for a quarterback who, while having risen on many media and analyst draft boards in the final weeks leading up to the draft, has a major knock of being a “system” quarterback in a Lane Kiffin-run offense that is noted for being quarterback friendly.
Steve Jones, the play-by-play announcer for Penn State football who has also followed the Giants, got an extensive film study on Dart before the Nittany Lions’ matchup against the Ole Miss Rebels for the 2023 Peach Bowl. In his opinion, the popular belief that Dart is a system quarterback is rubbish.
“You can't make decisions on the run like he did if you're just a system guy,” Jones told the Locked On Giants podcast. “System guys are like, ‘Okay, A-B-C. Well, I guess I'll take a sack, right?’ No, when it comes time to ad-lib, you're out of the system. And he can do that.”
Jones said when it comes to quarterbacks, one of the basic questions to ask is if they check three boxes in what he calls the “SAM Principle,” which stands for size, arm, and mobility.
Dart, he said, has all three.
“Jaxson Dart has size. He's got a fabulous arm, and he has mobility. I don't think people realize he ran for 1,500 yards when he was at Ole Miss,” Jones said. He can pull the ball down, go, and be quick when he goes.
“When he played the Peach Bowl against Penn State, he made accurate throws in that game. … He dropped balls into the bucket repeatedly. … Guys would be covered, but he'd find the open guy.”
In that bowl game, won by the Rebels 38-25, Dart set an Ole Miss bowl game passing record with 394 passing yards. He also led the Rebels’ offense in scoring the most points (38) and recording both the most passing yards (394) and total yards (540).
That year, the Rebels finished the season with their first 11-win campaign in program history and notched their second victory in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
Jones further expressed his admiration for Dart's ability to get right back up after taking shots in the Peach Bowl against a very good Nittany Lions defense, noting how Dart consistently made the right decisions when guys were in his face.
“It was always if he had to make some decisions with a guy in his face coming at him instead of away from him,” Jones said of Dart. “Nine out of 10 quarterbacks in the NFL all have that issue. So I think that was a gem of a pick for the Giants.”
