Giants took early lumps with Eli Manning, but Jaxson Dart comes out fighting
Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart works in the pocket against the New Orleans Saints in the first half of an NFL game Sunday in New Orleans. Credit: AP/Gerald Herbert
Before Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning won two Super Bowls together, before they won anything together really, they were just a head coach and the rookie quarterback he was banking on trying to get him through the coming weeks.
In November 2004 Coughlin had elevated Manning to the starting job and the losses began to pile up. Not only was the team unsuccessful, Manning had some inarguably awful performances.
Coughlin thought back on those days on Wednesday night as he hosted his Jay Fund’s 21st annual Champions for Children Gala in Manhattan, an event that began that same year he and Manning came to New York.
He mentioned the 31-7 loss in Washington where Manning completed just 12 passes. He recalled the week after that, in Baltimore, when the Giants lost, 37-14, and Manning completed just four passes with a rating of 0.0.
“Eli came in and sat in my office first thing in the morning \[after those games\],” Coughlin said. “He wanted to assure me that he could do it and that he could be the quarterback of the New York Giants and that he would improve and be better each time out.
“And he was.”
It’s not just the coincidence of timing that brought those memories back 21 years later of course. The Giants now find themselves in a bit of a similar situation. They have a new rookie quarterback.
But the struggling? The growing pains? Those don’t seem to be part of Jaxson Dart’s experience.
Starting just his third NFL game on Thursday night against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles, Dart completed 17 of 25 passes for 195 yards and a touchdown, and ran for another 58 and a TD in a stunning 34-17 win.
He’s changed the vibes at MetLife Stadium where the Giants have now won two in a row under his watch, he’s changed the expectations for the team, and, for one night at least, he changed the recent dominance the Eagles have had over the Giants.
Coughlin spent some time with the Giants at training camp so he got an up-close look at Dart back then. And he has been watching Dart play the last few weeks. He’s been impressed. But Coughlin tried to slow the hype a bit based off his own experience with Manning.
“He’s a good player, he’s a good athlete,” Coughlin said. “As with all young rookie quarterbacks there is going to be a learning curve. . . . Everybody from here on out is going to prepare a different blitz package for him, something he hasn’t seen, and he has to go through it.”
Sorry, Coach. Not this guy. Not yet, anyway.
Manning in 2004 had some advantages that Dart currently does not, among them the players who would eventually become the franchise’s all-time leading rusher, all-time leader in receptions, and most prolific tight end in their history.
Dart has played less than one half with Malik Nabers and headed into Thursday’s game without Darius Slayton. The generational running back he could have had as a wingman was lining up for the other team on Thursday.
Not a problem. Even with depleted personnel the youngest starting quarterback in the league was playing like a wily vet instead of a wilting rook.
“He’s been pretty consistent,” Brian Daboll said of Dart at halftime on the PrimeTV broadcast. “He’s been that way all three weeks of his starts.”
It’s almost hard to remember there was a time when the Giants thought they could go through this whole season with Dart on the bench. Now it’s hard to imagine them having anyone else playing the position . . . although Dart did have to come off the field for yet another concussion test late in the third quarter after taking a helmet-twisting sack.
Russell Wilson took one snap (an in completion on third down) before Dart emerged from the blue medical tent with his helmet in his hand ready to return to the game by the start of the fourth quarter. According to the broadcast he was watching the action through the mesh in the tent and yelling encouragement to teammates during his examination.
It was clear from the beginning of this game that Dart had no intentions of sputtering for a second straight week following Sunday’s loss to the Saints that featured five straight turnovers. He led the Giants down the field with a 34-yard pass to Lil’Jordan Humprey then ran for a 20-yard touchdown on their opening drive.
It marked the first time since 2009 that the Giants have scored a touchdown on their opening drive in three straight games.
On the next possession, Dart hit Wan’Dale Robinson for a 35-yard touchdown. That marked the first time in 81 regular-season games that the Giants scored more than seven points in any first quarter.
Then, after the Eagles came back and took a 17-13 lead midway through the second quarter, Dart put together a 15-play, 67-yard drive that was capped by Cam Skattebo’s 4-yard run. The Giants led 20-17 at halftime.
Scattebo added a second touchdown on a 1-yard run midway through the third on a drive that was helped along by Dart diving for a first down on a scramble along the sideline. That made it 27-17. Scattebo had a third, also a 1-yarder, with 9:41 left in the game after Cor’Dale Flott’s interception with a 68-yard return and Dart’s pass into the end zone that drew a pass interference penalty.
Coughlin had to wait through Manning’s trials in their first season together. The next year they won 11 games and a division title. Two years after that, they won the first of their two Super Bowls.
What awaits Dart and Daboll? That’s impossible to say. But one thing has become obvious: Unlike with Couglin and Manning we won’t have to endure much early failure to start finding out.
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.
