The New York Giants have to adapt to a new reality after the injury quarterback Jaxson Dart suffered against the Los Angeles Rams.
What was originally believed to be a relatively minor injury from which he could return by the Giants’ bye week turned into season-ender. Dart will need surgery to repair his PCL and meniscus.
Now, the Giants have to reckon with life without their starting quarterback. And while the Giants’ immediate concern is the Tennessee Titans, they now know that they won’t see Dart
again as their starting quarterback until OTAs in 2027.
The implications have been coming in waves as we learn more about his status.
We spent months speculating on how Matt Nagy, Greg Roman, and Brian Callahan would combine their philosophies to build the Giants’ offense. The Giants’ offensive scheme was impressive against the Dallas Cowboys and was clearly built around Dart’s manifold skillset.
Dart is not only an accurate passer with the ability to make impressive throws from the pocket and off-platform, he’s also a great athlete who can extend, scramble, or gash the defense as a runner himself. It’s a skill set which which John Harbaugh was excited to work, as he said back in July.
“Jaxson’s capable of doing a lot of things,” Harbaugh said on ‘The Domonique Foxworth Show.’ “Like he can live in a lot of different worlds, football-wise. He can live in a power-running game, obviously, and a power-running game protects the quarterback because you can hand the ball off and make people defend that and keep them honest. Then, it opens up your play-action passing game. … That stuff, we’re gonna be in those worlds.
“But now we can also get in the gun or we can get in the pistol, and we can run RPOs, we can run quarterback-driven runs with Jaxson Dart, a lot of the stuff that we hand in Baltimore with Lamar, as well.
…
“So, that all kind of goes together on first and second down to create problems for the defense, and I just feel like it all starts with the quarterback. Jaxson is a guy that does give you a chance to live in all those different worlds. So, if he can do it, then we’re gonna do it, and that’s what we’re planning on doing.”
The Giants might have planned to live in those different worlds, but the injury to Dart came along like the Death Star and those worlds went the way of Alderaan.
Jameis Winston is a talented thrower of the ball, with a powerful arm and the ability to attack all areas of the field. He may be prone to interceptions, but that has more to do with a willingness to challenge any receiving window than a lack of accuracy as a passer.
However, he simply doesn’t have anything like Dart’s athleticism, and the loss of Dart’s mobility has ripped pages out of the Giants’ playbook.
The Giants’ offense in Week 1 had Roman’s finger prints all over it, as well as those of Nagy. Roman has long coached mobile quarterbacks and freely incorporates their athleticism in his run schemes. He coached Alex Smith and Collin Kaepernick under Jim Harbaugh with the San Francisco 49ers, Lamar Jackson with the Baltimore Ravens, and Justin Herbert with the Los Angeles Chargers.
Nagy, too, has enjoyed mobile quarterbacks. He coached Alex Smith and Patrick Mahomes with the Kansas City Chiefs, and then Mitchell Trubisky and Justin Fields with the Chicago Bears.
Mobile quarterbacks are the bane of defensive coordinators. Their ability to move the pocket, as well as extend and scramble, slow down the opposing pass rush and force the defense to play contain. Their ability to contribute in the run game stresses perimeter players and linebackers, making play-action all the more effective, because any mesh-point could turn into a quarterback run.
Roman has also used his quarterbacks’ athleticism as a counter-punch for the power run game, giving added dimensions to stress the defense.
And while Jameis may have a receiving touchdown on his resume, those “dual threat” aspects aren’t present in his game.
The Giants will likely have to shift to a more traditional offensive scheme with Winston under center. The good news is that Brian Callahan has experience with a less mobile, pass-first quarterback in Joe Burrow, while tight ends coach Tim Kelly was the Giants’ interim offensive coordinator a year ago. Kelly’s experience coaching Winston as the starting quarterback when Dart missed a pair of games with a concussion will be invaluable now. Meanwhile, Callahan’s background in the “New West Coast” offense (such as is run by Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, and Klint Kubiak) could give the offense a way forward.
That could mean taking a page out of Sean McVay’s book with Matthew Stafford, who is in a similar mold as Winston (though a far better quarterback).
The Rams use alignment, spacing, and personnel to hide their intentions, pairing heavy packages with precision route concepts, and light packages with the run. The Giants already have similar concepts in their offense, but could better tailor them to Winston’s talents. In particular, they could look to use heavy packages and play-action to open up explosive passes to players like Malik Nabers, Isaiah Likely, and Darnell Mooney. That, in turn, could open up the run game as defenses are stressed vertically by Winston’s penchant to attack deep.
On the flip side, the Giants could lean into lighter personnel packages with Cam Skattebo or Najee Harris in the backfield. Teams could follow the Giants into lighter personnel packages, and be more vulnerable to Greg Roman’s power run schemes.
It’s possible that the Giants could look to restructure their roster slightly to better fit Winston’s skill set as the weeks go on. However, their team is their team at this point. And while the Giants will undoubtedly “look at all options”, they’re unlikely to acquire any game-changing players midseason.
Final thoughts
No team plans to be without their starting quarterback for most of the season. It’s one thing to be without Dart for a game or three, but it’s quite another to be without him for 15 games.
The Giants extended Winston to the tune of $13 million for a reason. They clearly believe that Winston is one of the best backup quarterbacks in the NFL. He played poorly against the Rams, however the entire team seemed to be in disarray after Dart’s injuries. The hope is that he’ll play like the quarterback Giants believe him to be with actual practice reps with the starting offense and the knowledge that he’s The Guy going forward.
They also count Winston as a leader in the locker room, and are now counting on the charismatic veteran to rally his teammates.
In other words, the Giants are depending on Jameis Winston and need him to show up, as well as support him to the best of their ability. That might not preclude them from trying to procure another quarterback if they don’t love the idea of Jake Haener being their backup for the next 15 games.
It also now falls to Harbaugh to prove that he is worth his $100 million contract and be the experienced, steady hand to see the Giants through the storm. Likewise, Joe Schoen now needs to prove himself worth his extension and continue to explore all options to give Harbaugh and Winston the best tools possible to make the best of a bad situation.
The Giants’ new reality is that they need to adapt on the fly to winning with a different brand of football than they intended a week ago.
