Jaxson Dart took Giants' loss to Saints hard; that's a good sign
Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart walks off the field after a loss to the New Orleans Saints in an NFL game on Sunday in New Orleans. Credit: AP/Butch Dill
NEW ORLEANS
Last week Jaxson Dart sat in front of his locker after the game and his teammates and coaches came to him. They took turns congratulating him, patting him on the shoulders, even hugging him after his first NFL victory. He collected the praise like a bride receiving bulging envelopes on her wedding day.
This time, though, it was Dart who made the rounds.
In a very somber, very stunned, very disappointed space deep inside the Caesars Superdome, as his teammates tried to process their 26-14 loss to the previously winless Saints, the quarterback tried to get to as many of them as he could. He delivered a series of quick individual messages, some with different words but all with the same tone.
“ ‘This one is on me,’ ” he said he told them, “ ‘and I’ll get better.’ ”
The first part is an exaggeration, of course. Dart did make his share of mistakes, but he wasn’t the one who allowed the Saints to climb back from a 14-3 hole with a momentum-swinging 87-yard touchdown pass. He wasn’t the one who dropped the couple of catchable passes that would have extended drives. He wasn’t on a defense that made zero impact plays against a quarterback who had lost his first 10 career starts.
And even though he did record three turnovers, he wasn’t the one who fumbled late in the first half to allow the Saints to take the lead, or on the first play of the fourth quarter. That one ended an otherwise productive and potentially game-altering 12-play drive that had reached the Saints’ 12 when the Giants were down by five.
Which brings us to the second part of that postgame point he was promulgating, the bit about getting better.
The game had ended, but that already was happening.
This season of firsts for Dart will have plenty more of them, but on Sunday he was able to tick off his first road game, his first fumble, his first (and second) interception and, yes, his first loss.
His first NFL humbling.
So all eyes inside and outside the organization suddenly were on him to see how he would react to the sloppy defeat. He became a human Rorschach. And unlike his and the Giants’ performance on the field, he did not disappoint.
He owned it and put it on himself, all of it, even though that clearly wasn’t the complete story.
“Quarterbacks are measured by wins and losses,” he said. “I take that to heart. I felt like I was the one who should have been putting our team in a better situation to get a win in this game.”
He later added: “I’m the leader of the offense, so I think any time those things happen, it kind of falls back on the leaders. There is a responsibility when you are the quarterback to go win games, and that’s just the standard I hold myself to.”
None of that came across as words that players are supposed to say, but rather as heartfelt emotion. This loss bugged Dart for many reasons, and that’s good. Too often players think there is strength in shrugging things off. Dart was deeply disappointed and let that show.
Clearly things can tilt too much in that direction with tantrums and distracting actions, but Dart wasn’t close to reaching that territory. We’ve witnessed plenty of Giants quarterbacks after losses in recent years, and frankly, it was nice to see something other than stoicism. Something human and honest.
This wasn’t going to be a straight, uninterrupted ascent for Dart no matter how good he looked last week and how great he looked early in this game, when he led two touchdown drives capped with passes to Theo Johnson. At 22, Dart is the youngest starting quarterback in the NFL. There were always going to be chutes to go along with the ladders he was climbing. Brian Daboll said as much when he named Dart his starter about two weeks ago.
It was convenient to ignore that warning after his first win, but it still applies to this project and Dart’s development.
“That’s the NFL,” Daboll said of the lesson from this game. “Every play matters, and he knows that. He’s as hard on himself as anybody. There was a lot to learn from this [loss], and that’s what we’ll do.”
A lot for Dart to learn, yes. About ball security and passing precision and decision-making. But also a lot for the Giants to learn about him.
“I think he handled it pretty well, as well as he could,” said receiver Darius Slayton, whose deep drop, inability to bring in a flea-flicker and fumble were three big sins in this loss. “In my head, I really don’t know that he struggled, quite frankly. Pretty much every mistake he made, we probably could have helped him out.”
Defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence said of his advice for Dart: “Shake it, man. [Expletive] is gonna happen. You just shake it and you move on to the next play. You are going to have games like that, but you don’t let them stay.”
Will Dart be able to do that?
“I think so,” Lawrence said.
Dart won’t have much time for moping. The Giants host the Eagles on Thursday night.
Dart’s coronation as the player whom the Giants are counting on to turn them around, to lead them to success and ultimately to make them consistent winners may have been a bit premature. That doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen, though.
He had some of his flaws exposed on Sunday. Yet in the long run — and that’s what really matters with rookie quarterbacks — what he showed in the immediate aftermath of the loss may be more significant than any play he has yet to make or not make in his first two games.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
