The New York Giants are betting heavily on quarterback Jaxson Dart.
Even with the arrival of John Harbaugh, a revamped defense, and renewed emphasis on the run game, the Giants will go as far as Dart is capable of taking them. Dart’s rookie season was exciting, with flashes of brilliance and even some Mahomesian magic. But there’s also still plenty of room for improvement in Dart’s game, and national opinions on him are split.
For instance, Dart was the 28th-ranked quarterback in SB Nation’s analytics
powered preseason quarterback rankings. That put him four spots below Tyler Shough at the bottom of their 4th tier of QBs, just above 2025 first overall pick Cam Ward as the second-worst QB in the second-worst tier.
Here’s how Dart graded out on their 6 criteria
- Offensive impact – 7
- Accuracy – 4
- Explosive plays – 4
- Scoring – 4
- Lack of turnovers – 8
- Clutch – 4
- Overall – 31
Personally, I am both okay saying that Dart is a fourth-tier quarterback, and saying that I don’t put much stock in their rankings.
Frankly, I struggle with a piece of analysis that doesn’t show it’s work or explain the methodology: Case in point, Jaxson Dart had 24 total touchdowns in 14 games last year, while Lamar Jackson had 23 total touchdowns in 13 games. Yet, Jackson was given a “10” in scoring, while Dart got a “4”.
Of course, the answer is in their “tilt” metric which seems to be there to arm wrestle results into line with popular perception.
Known problems with this model: This scoring format naturally hurts quarterbacks with fewer starts in the NFL, because these numbers pull heavily from the 2025 season, with the tilt being evaluated based on career body of work. In reality, Cam Ward and Jaxson Dart should be higher in the rankings — but we just don’t have enough to tilt their rankings up. Similarly, Shedeur Sanders had one of the worst runs as a starter not just in 2025, but in NFL history. This gives him a lot more wiggle room to move up, but it can’t be reflected at this time.
But as I said, I’m also okay with saying Dart still has to earn respect league-wide.
As things stand now, I’d suggest that the arrow is pointed up, but Dart definitely still needs to work on areas of his game to become a trusted franchise quarterback.
Former NFL scout Nate Tice called Dart an “athletic project” when evaluating each of last year’s rookie quarterbacks on the “Football 301” podcast. (You can watch the full podcast below).
“My first and foremost takeaway re-watching Jaxson,” Tice said, “and this was my takeaway watching him in college and watching him during his rookie season.
“Dude’s a hell of an athlete. Dude is strong. Dude can run. He’s got legit, legit vision. Like, he sets up blocks and he’s willing to chuck some stuff and create some stuff. And that can get him in trouble, which I will get into in a little bit as well. But this guy is a real good athlete and I actually have a comparison for him … that I’m excited to throw out here.”
In Tice’s view, Dart has a sky-high upside, but isn’t there yet. Matt Harmon, who joined Tice in evaluating the rookie quarterbacks, pointed to Dart’s advanced stats to show he thrived in chaos, but wasn’t as consistent on a down-to-down basis.
“He’s 13th in EPA per play last year, he’s 17th success rate.” Harmon said. “Like, that’s nice. If you just look at pass plays though, then he’s 28th in EPA per drop back on just pass plays. So that’s a part of it like he as you said he should get a lot of leash here. He should get a lot of run cuz the upside is very high.
“He is very, very, very, very physically talented … can he progress?
“A lot of guys are phenomenal athletes,” Tice said. “I’ll bring up Russ as one of them, but even guys like Justin Fields or something, they have to learn to win from the pocket. They just have to they can keep scrambling and running, but they just have to balance out the numbers. And when he was pressured last year, Dart scrambled 17.1% of the time, which easily led the NFL. 8.8% is the league average for comparison’s sake. Since 2013, that’s the seventh highest rate under pressure by any quarterback to scramble rate under pressure.”
Overall, Tice believes that Dart has a “wild horse” mentality that needs to be reined in. It’s a quality that he likes in a quarterback and would rather that than trying to get a cautious passer to cut loose, but it needs to happen nonetheless.
“He’s a project,” Tice said. “He’s not to this level, but people should be talking to him more like a Josh Allen than even say, like a Caleb [Williams].
“He’s kind of that, you know Josh Allen is the extreme version of this, but it’s more of a wild horse project that you’re trying to rein in and go from there. So that’s what more of the questions are not playmaking and not like explosive plays. He can do that. It’s just all the filling in between the lines.”
Neither Tice nor Matt Harmon would go so far as to say Dart is the next Josh Allen, though the style of quarterback is in that mold. Tice’s comparison, and goal, for Dart is a young Russell Wilson.
“He has to become kind of like a version of Russell Wilson when he was young” Tice said. “And I mean that as a scrambler, a hell, like launch that thing down the field, home run swinging quarterback. you take your sacks, you scramble, and you launch stuff.
“The thing with Russ that he doesn’t get a lot of credit for was how he could avoid hits. He didn’t really take a lot of big hits.”
Tice believes there’s a wide variance in what Dart can become.
“It’s how I scout guys and took it from a basketball guy, [is] ‘Star, Starter, Bench, Bust.’ Bench could be average quarterback in in this instance. Like I think Dart has the biggest ‘star’ chunk of that pie [chart], but he has half of it that’s ‘bust’.”
However, he also believes that what Dart showed as an explosive playmaker, and the upside to be a star in the league. For comparison, while Tice and Harmon believe that Cam Ward has a high ceiling, and both he and Tyler Shough have higher floors than Dart, neither has as high a ceiling.
Chris’ thoughts
I do tend to agree with Tice’s evaluation of Dart. I think there’s enough magic in his game to draw comparisons to a young Russell Wilson, particularly considering the baseball background the two share. But there’s also a world in which Dart winds up as a “Justin Fields” who never quite develops and realizes his potential.
The structure of the Giants’ offense last year didn’t do Dart a ton of favors, and there were too many plays where his outlets or checkdowns were on the opposite side of the field and well away from his progression in the intended passing concept.
But even so, I believe the biggest lever Dart and the Giants can pull to spark his improvement will be — as Tice and Harmon said — learning how to win from the pocket. Dart’s ability to gash defenses with his legs is a dangerous weapon, but it shouldn’t be a weapon of first resort.
Personally, I believe Dart will take a significant step forward when he improves his footwork to better time the play and throw with better mechanics. So much will fall into place when his timing and eyes are in sync with the receivers’ routes. Likewise, his accuracy and velocity will improve with a consistent power base for his passes. All of that should make him much more comfortable in the pocket and less likely to scramble at a moment’s notice.
He should have the green light to scramble and defenses should have to respect the quarterback running game. Becoming a more discerning runner will help keep him on the field to get the reps he needs to improve, and becoming a more consistent passer will put defenses in the same kind of “pick your poison” situation as when they play Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson.
Overall, Dart is definitely better than the 28th quarterback in the NFL. But while he has the potential to reach into the upper echelons of NFL quarterback play, he has work to do in order to get there.
