Starting Jaxson Dart was the only choice Giants’ coach Brian Daboll could make

Brian Daboll’s cards are all on the table. Daboll played the last card he had in his hand on Tuesday when he named rookie Jaxson Dart as the starting quarterback for the 0-3 New York Giants.

If Dart can’t save Daboll’s job as head coach of the Giants no one or nothing else can.

That, really, is the bottom line. If this doesn’t work, if a Dart/Daboll pairing doesn’t look like something that will finally bring better days to a franchise that has spent too much time being embarrassingly bad since winning the 2011 Super Bowl, Daboll will be looking for an offensive coordinator job in 2026. If not sooner.

Is it fair to put that burden on a 22-year-old kid who has yet to throw an NFL pass?

Absolutely not.

That, though, is where Daboll and the Giants are.

Is it fair that Daboll and the Giants are handing Dart the keys to the franchise long before they wanted to, in a messy situation with a season on the brink of disaster, a team riddled with issues extending far beyond quarterback and a 3-0 team coming to MetLife Stadium on Sunday?

Absolutely not.

Again, though, that is where Daboll and the Giants are.

The Giants are 9-28 since their surprising playoff of 2022, a year where Daboll was — justifiably — voted Coach of the Year. They are 3-17 since the beginning of the 2024 season. They have lost 14 of their last 15 games.

After starting 6-1 in 2022, Daboll now has an 18-35-1 record, a .343 winning percentage. Only Joe Judge (10-23, .303, Pat Shurmur (9-28, .281) and Bill Arnsparger (7-28 from 1974-76, a .200 winning percentage) have been worse.

Daboll ultimately failed with Daniel Jones, a quarterback Giants ownership loved and believed in. Russell Wilson clearly hasn’t been the answer, his limitations with less mobility than he had in his prime clearly visible against the good defenses possessed by the Washington Commanders and Kansas City Chiefs.

The roster has been overhauled and upgraded. In my view, this is the best one of the Daboll/Joe Schoen era. The coaching staff that works for Daboll has been shuffled annually. Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka called plays. Then, he didn’t. Now, he does again.

All of that and Daboll, a coach known for his prowess an an offensive mind and his work with quarterbacks, has not been able to improve an offense that was decent in 2022 but has been mostly terrible since the start of the 2023 season.

A defense widely expected to be the strength of the team has underperformed. The Giants have struggled to defend the run, cover the pass and create game-changing plays for years. Even with numerous offseason upgrades, that has yet to change.

The special teams have rarely seemed special.

Daboll’s football team is an undisciplined one that commits far too many penalties, misses too many opportunities to make game-changing plays and almost always seems to come out on the wrong end of the handful of plays in every game that determine winning and losing.

It has too often looked unprepared, particularly at the beginning of seasons.

It has shown a startling lack of creativity on both offense, where Daboll and Kafka are widely thought of quality offensive coaches, and defense, where the front seven talent and versatility should make them a weekly nightmare offenses dread preparing for and facing.

Dart is being asked to make all of that disappear. Or, at least, become far less noticeable.

Is any of that fair? Absolutely not.

Again, though, Daboll hasn’t been able to fix any of that without quarterback play that can consistently lift the team around him. So, Daboll has to ask. And hope.

Speaking of hope, franchises that are consistent bottom-feeders, which the Giants have been for most of the last decade and a half, need to sell hope to their fan base.

Without hope, you get planes flying above MetLife Stadium carrying messages from unhappy fans demanding change. You get home openers where half the stadium is decked out in the red jerseys worn by the opposing team.

You have to sell those fans hope. Drafting a quarterback in the first round is part of trying to do that. Putting him on the field and seeing what he has is the other part.

The Giants’ season, no matter what happens the next 14 games, just got a lot more interesting than it ever would have been with Wilson at quarterback.

Is Dart ready for all this?

I don’t know. I have consistently said both Dart and the Giants would be better off if the Giants could hold off until later, maybe much later, before turning to Dart. I still believe that. I do know that nothing has seemed too big for him thus far. I do know he has handled himself well every time the media has been around him. I do know he has an electricity about him that will light up the fan base if he succeeds.

I know there will be hiccups. What Jayden Daniels did last year for the Commanders and CJ Stroud did in 2023 for the Houston Texans remains the exception rather than the rule. There is danger in going to Dart right now. The Giants messed up with the last first-round quarterback they drafted, and the last thing they want to do is mess up with this one.

Playing him now, though, is really the only decision Daboll could make.