There hasn’t been much in the way of good regarding the injury to New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart.
At first it was believed that Dart only suffered an MCL strain when he was sandwiched between a pair of Los Angeles Rams defenders and could return inside of a month.
It was then revealed Tuesday morning that an MRI revealed that his injury is worse than initially believed. The reporting hasn’t revealed the exact nature of the injury, but that Dart would be out indefinitely and season-ending surgery
is on the table.
That catches us up to Wednesday morning, when Mike Garafolo reported that Dart’s injury doesn’t involve his ACL.
Garafolo said:
“Ian Rapoport and I were both told yesterday, this is not an ACL. But, the MRI did tell a different story from what the Giants were initially expecting. There is more damage than what the evaluations on site showed.“
The Giants’ hesitancy to confirm the nature of the injury makes sense in the light of Garafolo and Rapoport’s reporting. ACL injuries are usually quickly confirmed and the recovery timelines are well understood.
A different or complicated injury could be good news, worse news, or just bad news depending on what the continuing tests and opinions show.
Garafolo added that Dart’s recovery could follow several different timelines depending on the exact nature of the injury. None of the potential timelines are “very good”, according to Garafolo, and Dart’s season being over remains on the table.
“There are a lot of people involved. That means inside doctors [inside the Giants organization], outside doctors, that means Dart, the Giants. Everybody is going to come together and make a collective decision.”
Dart, obviously, will lobby to take the quickest route back to the field. Dart is an incredibly competitive young man and even played through a high ankle sprain his final season at Ole Miss. However, that might not be best for his long term health. Garafolo says,
“A lot of times when you have a young player, particularly at the quarterback position, these decisions are made with the long term interest of the player in mind.”
The Giants had to take Dart’s uniform away from him after he tried to talk his way back onto the field Monday night. With that in mind, the Giants may need to protect Dart from himself as much as deal with his injury.
Garafolo ends by saying that we should expect clarity on Dart’s status and timeline in the coming days.
We’ll update with more as we get it.
