Jaxson Dart's style of play is something the Giants need to embrace
Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart throws a pass during the second quarter against the Minnesota Vikings at MetLife Stadium on Dec. 21, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Jaxson Dart said he’d never had a game like last week’s performance. He also said he never wants to have one again.
On Sunday he’ll get his first chance at proving that.
Dart will be looking for his rebound game as a pro. After completing just 7 of 13 passes for 33 yards and taking five sacks against the Vikings last week, he’ll try to make sure that kind of production remains an anomaly rather than the norm when he faces the Raiders in Las Vegas. It’s a game between two of the worst teams in the league but one of the last opportunities for Dart to right himself before the regular season ends.
“I know what kind of player I am,” he said on Wednesday. “I’m going to bounce back.”
The Giants know what kind of player he is, too. Or at least they know what kind of player he was earlier this season. Since he returned from his concussion – and in particular since he took that whopper of a hit along the sideline in the Patriots game during his first action back from that injury – he’s definitely been deployed differently. There are fewer chances for him to run and create than there were beforehand.
Asked if he would like to be given more opportunities to carry the ball and take deeper chances in the passing game – all things that might occasionally put him at some level of peril – he made his feelings clear.
“Definitely would love all of that stuff,” he said with a smile.
The Giants should let him do it.
Unleash Dart.
Not only will that aid in his development moving forward, it will give the Giants their best chance to win in these last two games. He is their best, most dynamic play-maker on offense and he has also shown in the last few games that he has heeded the coaching in regard to sliding and being smart with the football in his hands. He’s earned the right to go back to being trusted to make smarter decisions in those circumstances, which is what all the hubbub over his hazardous style of play was all about.
Interim head coach Mike Kafka appears to agree.
Whenever anyone has questioned Dart since that disappointment against the Vikings, Kafka has come to his rescue by suggesting there was plenty he as a coach could have done better, too. That seems less like lip service and more like an inexperienced head coach who was trying to win a game so badly that he forgot the priorities of this woeful season have shifted from the record to the growth of the rookie quarterback. It also reads like someone who was so focused on beating the X’s and O’s of Minnesota’s concepts that he forgot Dart and his ability to play above those on-paper theories would have been his best weapon to do that.
So it is interesting that this week Kafka has used words like “compartmentalizing” last week’s game and changing strategies for the Raiders.
“We don’t ever want to put our players in a box,” Kafka said. “We want to give our players the ability to express themselves on the field to the best of their ability and let their natural abilities show. Sure, we have a framework within the offensive system that has certain rules that we have to work through. So you take those rules and you give it to the players and they elevate it and they put their own stamp on it and they make it their own and make it great.”
There has been plenty of blowback on Kafka for not doing that, some of which Dart seems to agree with. A social media post from WFAN earlier this week suggested that the Giants had “neutered” their quarterback and it received a “like” from Dart.
“I have all the confidence in this coaching staff and their ability to put me out there and put me in good situations,” Dart said. “There are definitely things I need to improve on myself so I definitely take accountability when it comes to mistakes here and there, but I think offensively for the most part this year we have done some really good things.”
He of course is talking about earlier when his style was more aggressive.
Dart said he feels “heard” by the coaches.
“Our is great and have been great with that communication,” he said. “I know as a rookie it’s not always the case, but to have those conversations and those heart-to-hearts is something that I definitely respect.”
“We have those discussions about how the game could have gone or should have gone and things we can get corrected together and I’m right there arm-in-arm with him in terms of our operation and how we are going to play on offense,” Kafka said.
If that’s really the case, expect Dart to be let loose on Sunday against the Raiders.
Dart certainly is.
“I’m excited for this week, being able to clean up on some things individually and as an offense do our best to try to get back in sync,” Dart said.
For the Giants right now that means allowing Dart to play the kind of free, uninhibited, improvisational football he was earlier this season.
Dart was big enough to promise the Giants he would never have a game like last week’s again. The Giants need to promise the same thing to him, too.
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.
