EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Jaxson Dart saw the linebacker. There’s no doubt about that. And he understood the situation too, with the Giants holding a 10-point lead in Denver with 4:56 to go. He may be only 22, but he knew his main job at that point was to stay out of trouble.
Yet he threw the pass anyway on third down and 5, and he didn’t get nearly enough on it to get it over linebacker Justin Strnad. It was a terrible, inexcusable interception, thrown deep in Giants territory, late in the game. Even Dart said, “We were in full control. You can’t do that. That was an unacceptable mistake.”
But as the Giants eye a better future under their newest star, the important part is what happened next. Their rookie quarterback responded not by folding or panicking or forcing bad throws, but by calmly leading a two-minute touchdown drive that should have won the game. Yes, it was aided by two terrible Broncos penalties. But he also completed a remarkable fourth-and-19 pass to Wan’Dale Robinson for a first down.
Just four starts into his NFL career, Dart understood the intensity of the moment and didn’t seem fazed by it at all.
“I think that when you’ve been put in high-pressure moments for a lot of your career since you were a kid, you kind of find those moments enjoyable,” he said. “And at the same time, when I watched the best players in the world when I was a kid, that’s what they were doing. I think it’s just exciting to have the ball in your hands in those situations.”
If the Giants’ defense had held, that would have been Dart’s crowning moment. The fourth-and-19 pass would’ve been hailed as the sign that he’s arrived.
And even though the Giants blew it all and lost the game 33-32, maybe it still was.
“He has a lot of resolve,” receiver Darius Slayton told me on Wednesday. “His ability to flush a past play and move on, it’s really hard to do in this game. It’s easy to linger on things when you do something maybe that [you shouldn’t]. But he shook back well.”
“Yeah, he’s relentless,” added defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. “You can see that play by play with him. Bad plays are going to happen. It’s all about how you respond. He responded well, and that’s all that matters.”
That really is what matters to the Giants (2-5) right now, even after their debacle in Denver. Wins would be nice, especially as they head to Philadelphia on Sunday, but the growth of Dart is what matters most. And even in defeat, there was a lot to like about his performance. He was thrust into an impossible situation, in a hostile environment, against a top-five defense, and without two of his best receivers (Malik Nabers and Slayton) and his starting center (John Michael Schmitz).
And yet he led the Giants to a 19-0 lead through three quarters and a 26-8 lead in the fourth before the collapse began. And he did it while taking a beating from a defense that hit him 10 times, sacked him four times, and clogged his running lanes so well that he only ran five times for 11 yards.
“He had a lot of mental toughness,” Giants coach Brian Daboll said. “Made a lot of good plays for us, gave us an opportunity to win against one of the better defenses on the road in a hostile environment. Obviously, that one play hurt, but there are a lot of plays that helped get to where we were at.”
Some of them were made because of Dart, because he changed the play at the line of scrimmage based on what he saw in the defense. That happened on his 44-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter, when he not only made a pre-snap adjustment, but then stepped up in a collapsing pocket, saw that the Broncos lost coverage on tight end Daniel Bellinger and hit him for the score.
But it was the fourth-and-19 throw that delighted the Giants more than any other. It came less than four minutes of game time after his ugly interception, after the Broncos had turned a 26-16 deficit into a 30-26 lead. The Giants got the ball back with 1:51 remaining. Dart was sacked and threw two incompletions on the first three plays on that drive.
Still, on that fourth and forever, he stepped up when his pocket collapsed and threw across his body as two defenders rushed toward him. And he somehow hit a well-covered Robinson right at the first down mark.
A roughing the passer penalty was going to give the Giants a first down anyway. But that doesn’t take away from the confidence and toughness he needed in that situation to make that kind of throw.
“I mean, if you want to be great, you can’t let things linger,” Lawrence said. “You’ve got to flush it and you’ve got to move on. The quicker you do that and the quicker you respond in a positive way, it’s better for everybody.”
“Of course,” Slayton added, “it’s definitely one of those easier-said-than-done things, for sure.”
Few Giants quarterbacks recently have rebounded and lived up to those big moments the way Dart did on Sunday. And given the way the past decade has unfolded for this franchise, it’s about time they had a quarterback who didn’t crumble under the weight of whatever is going wrong.
In some ways, Dart’s debut is a reminder of what it was like when Eli Manning was their remarkably cool quarterback under pressure. The style isn’t the same — Dart is far more mobile and certainly more outwardly cocky — but the steely demeanor in the face of chaos certainly is the same.
He showed he can bring order to that chaos. He showed he has the maturity to make good things happen, even when everything else is going bad.
“Just resilient,” Bellinger said after the game. “He played resilient. In that huddle, you wouldn’t think he’s a rookie the way he carries himself. He’s a mature individual who’s going to have a lot of success in this league.”
Jaxson Dart and Daniel Bellinger celebrate after Bellinger’s receiving touchdown in the first quarter against the Broncos in Week 7. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
The Giants have seemed sure about that since the day they drafted Dart in April. And even after blowing an 18-point lead with six minutes to go, even after his inexcusable fourth-quarter interception, the Giants are more sure than ever about him now. Dart’s confidence and cockiness are starting to become infectious.
He’s convinced them that he’s the guy who is always going to give them a chance to win.
“I didn’t have doubts on if we were going to [win] the game,” Dart said of Sunday’s game. “I just felt confident with the ball in my hand.”
There’s clearly nowhere else the Giants would want it to be.
Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He spent six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him on Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.
This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports.
Read the full article here
