What will the New York Giants’ Jaxson Dart development plan look like, and will it work?

What will the New York Giants’ Jaxson Dart development plan look like, and will it work?

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The Jaxson Dart Development Plan.

It took the New York Giants two years GM Joe Schoen called “exhausting” to determine that Dart was the quarterback in whose hands they wanted to place the franchise’s future and in whose hands Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll would put their reputations and future employment.

There were thousands of man-hours invested. Grinding tape. Riding airplanes. Staying in hotels. Watching games and practices. Gathering information from anyone and everyone who had insight into two draft classes worth of quarterback prospects. All-Star games. The Combine. Pro Days. Dinners. Private workouts. Missed holidays and family time. Meetings upon meetings between the front office, coaching staff, and ownership to get on the same page and make the best possible decision.

The Giants tried in vain a year ago to trade up in the draft for Drake Maye. They decided to pass on J.J. McCarthy, Michael Penix Jr., and Bo Nix. They fell into and out of love with Shedeur Sanders.

The entire process, one which Schoen said again and over the two years was very specific and had been developed by Daboll more than a decade earlier, finally led the Giants to trade up from No. 34 to No. 25 in the draft to select Dart.

Schoen said it was “gratifying” for the organization “to get a guy that we’re convicted on and we like.”

Daboll now has a quarterback of his choosing he can mold from Day 1 of his NFL career.

“I think he’s got a lot of qualities you look for in a good quarterback. He’s tough, makes good decisions with the football, pushes the ball down the field, has athletic ability, played in a really tough conference, started there at USC as a young guy,” Daboll said. “But did a really good job throughout this process of our meetings, board work, workouts, and the tape that we liked.

“I like the way he plays. I like his competitive fire. I like his accuracy. I like his ability, again, to push the ball down the field. His athletic ability to run with the football.”

Now, though, a whole new phase of the work begins.

So, what is the plan?

The Giants are not going to lay that out in detail for the world to know, dissect, and ultimately pick apart.

“The process of developing a quarterback is just that,” Daboll said. “So we’re going to do everything we can to develop him and bring him along.

“I don’t expect him to know everything right off the bat. It’s a hard position to play, a hard position to coach. But he has the traits that we look for and covet in a guy to be able to learn and grow.

“We’re going to do everything we can to develop him.”

“So his expectations coming in is just to improve every day, soak it up like a sponge, learn from the coaches, learn from the veteran quarterbacks in the room, try to improve every day he can in terms of his understanding of the system. And then once we get on the field, the physical part of it, that’s what we’re looking for from him right now is to grow each and every day with a positive mindset, and I think he has the tools physically and mentally to do that.”

Schoen concurred.

“We traded up for him. We’re ecstatic to have him. He’s got a lot of makings of a good quarterback, and there’s a long way to go,” Schoen said. “There’s a developmental process that he’s going to have to go through. Again, these offenses are not easy to learn, and the execution has to be at a high level.”

Entering this process, which we get our first glimpse of on Friday when a two-day rookie minicamp begins, history tells us it is more likely to fall short of the hoped-for outcome than to be a franchise-altering success.

One comforting factor is that Schoen, Daboll, and quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney have done this successfully — and recently — with Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills. Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka played a key role in the early development of Patrick Mahomes with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Sal Capaccio, Bills sideline reporter for WGR550, had a front-row seat to Buffalo’s work with Allen, the reigning NFL MVP.

“It was clear they had a total and complete vision from top down,” Capaccio told Big Blue View. “From the minute they drafted him [Allen] throughout his development, it was all hands on deck. Every single person, from ownership, to the general manager, to the head coach, to the assistant coaches...they made sure they were all aligned and giving him everything he needed.”

Pete Sweeney, who covers the Chiefs for SB Nation’s Arrowhead Pride, passed along this regarding Kafka’s role with Mahomes.

“Worked closely to develop him. In the 2017 Week 17 game, Matt Nagy/Brad Childress focused on playoffs with Alex while Mike served as his OC of sorts for first career start vs. Denver.”

Sweeney also sent this quote from Chiefs coach Andy Reid at the 2018 NFL Combine.

“Patrick Mahomes and his opportunity to start in that game, again I can’t talk about what is going on, but I will tell you that I felt like he played very well in that game. We need to get his percentage a little bit up on throws. I like the way he went about business. We were able to take him, between Mike Kafka and myself, we were able to take him and lead him into that game throughout the whole week while Matt and Brad Childress and Alex worked on the playoff teams. What that did was it allowed you to get a feel for him for down the road whenever that time was and I liked what I saw and felt there. I think he handled things very well. Prepared to the T on that, handled himself very well.”

“A perfect situation”

Dart is not expected to be the Week 1 starter. That will be Russell Wilson, with Jameis Winston almost certainly caddying as QB2.

Dart won’t play significant snaps in 2025 unless there are injuries, or unless circumstances — good or bad — lead Daboll and Schoen to give him some late-season playing experience.

“All that will play out,” Daboll said.

“He’s in a really good spot where he can come in and he can sit behind a couple of veteran quarterbacks and learn and doesn’t have to be thrown out there right away,” Schoen said. “I think from a developmental standpoint and the ability to grow, I think it’s a perfect situation for a young quarterback.”

There will be no shortage of on-field practice reps for Dart during the rookie mini-camp. He will get all the reps he can handle over the weekend.

“He’s in a really good spot ... I think it’s a perfect situation for a young quarterback.”

Dart will work primarily with the third team once OTAs start, perhaps getting an occasional rep with the 2s or 1s.

“We’ll have a plan for that and we’re working through that,” Schoen said. “We kind of did that a little bit at Buffalo with Josh [Allen] in terms of the initial plan of how we wanted to approach it and the reps that we needed to take and the things we wanted to see him do.

“Jaxson will get a fair amount of reps with the threes and maybe you’ll see him in there, sprinkle him in when he doesn’t even know he’s supposed to go in there just to see how he reacts being in a different atmosphere. He won’t know when or why. And then continue to work with the two older guys.”

Off the field

Once the Giants begin preparing for regular-season games, and throughout the season, there will not be consistent reps for Dart. There will likely only be scout team reps running the upcoming opponent’s offense.

That, simply, is the nature of the NFL. There is limited practice time with limited snaps — and those go to the players who are expected to play that week.

Those scout team reps, incidentally, are where Mahomes’ Kansas City teammates learned he would become a star.

The Giants will not be ignoring Dart.

When Eli Manning was backing up Kurt Warner as a rookie, Tom Coughlin gave him a weekly homework assignment. Manning had to put together a report each week for Warner and the offense on the opposing team’s blitz packages.

How Dart will spend his time away from the practice field is unknown. You can bet, though, that between Daboll, Kafka, Tierney, and assistant quarterbacks coach Chad Hall the Giants will always be focused on making sure the rookie is learning. Manning, who shares an alma mater with Dart and knows him from the Manning Passing Academy, is also around the facility as a resource.

Wilson and Winston will also have an impact on Dart. Getting ready to play, not mentoring, is the primary part of their job description. How they do it, though, how they study, conduct themselves in good times and bad, how they treat the rookie who will one day be the starter, are all things Dart can and will learn from.

Mahomes had Alex Smith to sit behind and learn from.

Allen was forced to play quickly because there wasn’t a Smith or a Wilson in Buffalo. The Bills, though, did surround Allen with veteran quarterbacks who could help him in Derek Anderson and Matt Barkley.

Back in 2020, The Athletic spoke to Anderson about Allen’s development:

Anderson was with Daboll in Cleveland during his first stint as an offensive coordinator. He noticed a massive change in Daboll in the time that passed. He used to be more rigid in his game plan. But he sees the way he and Allen interact, the way Allen has ownership of the scheme and can give feedback. And Daboll is receptive to it. That’s what happens when the entire franchise is bought in on a quarterback and his development. “It takes the whole organization,” Anderson said. “If a guy’s gonna play quarterback for your team, you got to have support all the way around. You can’t flip-flop and go back and forth. Unfortunately, I was in those situations. It makes life really hard.”

Before the draft, Matt Waldman of The Rookie Scouting Portfolio told me how the experiences of Wilson and Winston, and their ability to handle the quarterback job in 2025, could help a rookie quarterback.

“Now you have a quarterback room with two seasoned veterans who have played for multiple teams, who have worked with multiple coaches and systems, who have won and lost Super Bowls,” Waldman said. “All that collective experience in a quarterback room is really important.

“Regardless of what happens to the coach, the GM, and those quarterbacks he’s [Dart] going to have one full year to sit and watch.”

“His expectations coming in is just to improve every day, soak it up like a sponge, learn from the coaches, learn from the veteran quarterbacks in the room, try to improve every day.”

Waldman pointed out that that year isn’t necessarily about smoothing out mechanical issues. Players do most of that with private coaches away from the facility and generally during the offseason.

“What Alex Smith brought to Patrick Mahomes wasn’t about drop footwork, techniques, arm platforms, or reading the leverage of the Cover 3 defender in the flat,” Waldman said. “It was about how to manage a game.

“What do you do in the red zone? What do you do in the black zone? How you sometimes take the check-downs in situations where it’s important so that you prolong drives and keep the playbook open.

“When you make a mistake, how do you react? When your teammates make mistakes, how do you react? When you’re preparing in the quarterback room and preparing each day in the facility when do you come in, how do you work, how do you attack what it is that you have to work on?”

There is another benefit to not facing the pressure or expectation of having to lead a franchise from the moment you walk in the door as a rookie quarterback.

“You’re having time to adjust,” Waldman said. “You don’t have to deal with the media in your face about you as a starter. You don’t have to deal with the complexities of coverage disguises and athletic ability of opponents.

“Meanwhile, because you’re making all this money now you can have a little more time to get your training set up, your house set up, your relatives in a level of perspective that they probably need to have knowing that now you are probably the richest person in your extended family and you have to deal with some people coming at you asking for things that maybe aren’t realistic.

“These are all things that take up bandwidth ... all that bandwidth is saved to continue working at your craft behind the scenes, and that’s going to make you a lot better when you do step on the field.

“That’s all stuff that a lot of people don’t consider. They just expect guys to walk in and play.”

Dart will eventually play

He won’t be QB3 for the Giants forever.

Mahomes got to sit an entire year, aside from starting the season finale to get his feet wet. Allen, despite a planned redshirt year, was starting by Week 2 of his rookie season because nobody thought playing Nathan Peterman was tenable. Daniel Jones had replaced Eli Manning by Week 3 of his rookie season. Manning replaced Kurt Warner midseason in 2004 despite the Giants having a shot at making the playoffs.

Maybe Dart’s time will come during the 2025 season. It probably will, considering that the Giants used three quarterbacks in 2023 and four in 2024. Maybe the Giants will be in playoff contention right down to the wire, and Dart won’t have to play as Wilson and Winston carry the Giants all the way through.

Schoen and Daboll have their guy. They have taken their big swing at the quarterback position.

Honestly, it will probably be years before we know if they chose wisely. In the best-case scenario for Dart, Schoen and Daboll will be around to see the entire process through until we know a few seasons from now what Dart will become.

No one truly believes Jones could have been Allen, but three head coaches, two general managers, and five offensive play-callers, not to mention porous offensive lines and several seasons without quality receiving options did not help Jones reach whatever his ceiling might have been.

“We’ve done everything possible to screw this kid up,” John Mara said in 2022

Will the Giants be organized, committed, and together enough to avoid those mistakes again and help Dart become the player his considerable talents say he could become? Will they win enough games in 2025 that Daboll will get to see Dart’s development through beyond the upcoming season?

The journey of finding out is about to begin.

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