Why NY Giants Shouldn’t Rush QB Jaxson Dart into Starting Lineup

NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah has no doubt been closely following certain members of the 2025 NFL draft class throughout the spring. If there’s one he seems very bullish on, it’s New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart.

Dart’s first-ever OTAs and minicamp were mostly positive but hardly perfect. Regardless, has Jeremiah convinced more than ever that the rookie will eventually play for Big Blue sooner than later, a sentiment he expressed on The Rich Eisen Podcast.

“I think he’s got a chance to play pretty darn early here,” Jeremiah said. “You just kind of listen to the words of Brian Daboll, and you get the sense, this was his guy. He’s invested in him, and he seems to really, really like him ... it sounds a little different the way he’s talking about him.

“To me, that makes it sound like, ‘Hey, this isn’t something that this is a redshirt year for him,’ as they hand the ball to Russell Wilson for a full season. I think we’re gonna see a lot of Jaxson Dart this year.”

Jeremiah might want to pump the brakes on that take, though, according to Emory Hunt of CBS Sports and Football Gameplan, who attended the team’s OTAs and made some detailed observations of how the rookie progressed, noting in an upcoming interview with the Locked On Giants podcast that the lack of a true pass rush might have masked a few issues that were present on Dart’s college tape.

“The realistic approach is you don't want Dart to play this season because you're trying to get him out of what we saw at Ole Miss,” he said. “We know that is a hard offense for quarterbacks to transition out of. So here you have the luxury; do not rush this if you want the long-term success of him being a consistent, solid, athletic distributor of the football.”

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Hunt pointed to the fact that in the spring, quarterbacks can’t get hit or truly pressured, and that was something that Dart’s college tape showed he needed to work on. 

“In a throwing camp, he's gonna look great. You see athleticism. He has good size, so you can see where they could utilize him in a run game or a sprint-out passing game. 

“So the physical part, no issue with that. It's all about what he does when he can get hit and what he does in the situation.”

Hunt pointed to one instance in the team’s final OTA practice before the start of the recently concluded two-day minicamp when the Giant's defense brought the house at the rookie quarterback, who became flustered as the pocket around him collapsed. 

“You saw Dart just hold the ball, freeze and get locked in on his solo target to the point where it would have been a sack in a real game,” he said.

Hunt argued that there should be no rush to get Dart into the game until he’s truly good and ready and pointed to another quarterback who played in Lane Kiffin’s system, Matt Corral, as a cautionary tale as to why it’s best not to rush Dart into action until he’s truly good and ready.  

“Corral didn't have that luxury of sitting and working through the nuances of coming out of a Lane Kiffin offense and transitioning to the pros. He was competing for a starting job, so he had to be out there. He was getting as many reps as the starters. He was getting hit. He ended up getting hurt. 

“And then we saw him when he played, he's still doing a lot of the same stuff. So, he never really got the chance to break those bad habits. 

“That's why I said with Dart, him coming here was the best thing for him because now you can focus on winning games without being pressed to put a rookie out there that may not be ready, and you may not have a chance to break him out of those habits because you're trying to win games and you're trying to game plan.”

The Giants rookies report to training camp on July 15, and the rest of the team on July 22. The first practice is set for July 23 at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford.