Giants' Jaxson Dart's hunger to win is one thing the team can't afford to lose
The Giants' Jaxson Dart reacts on the sidelines during the final moments of a game against the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium on Dec. 14 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Credit: Jim McIsaac
There was a weird new vibe in the Giants locker room after last week’s game against the Commanders. The players were certainly upset that they had lost and they were disappointed in the result, but the usual gloom and despondency that had accompanied the seven previous games with the same outcome was gone. This was the eighth straight loss and it brought an eighth level of grief: Resignation.
That’s what happens this time of year in seasons like this. Players have to protect themselves from the emotional turmoil of their situation. Oh, they definitely give all they have on the field and in the preparation for the few Sundays that remain on the schedule. Most of them are professional enough to deliver that. But the consequence of yet another loss? That can slide right on by.
So there was little anger or fire from the Giants on that day, no outbursts or long, simmering stares like there had been just a few weeks earlier. Instead there were rueful smiles about plays on which the game turned, shrugs over things that were beyond their control and flowery takes on the few things that had improved. It wasn’t a happy place and the tones were appropriately hushed, but these Giants were far from horrified by their latest misstep. Words that used to describe these performances such as “unacceptable” and “embarrassing” were replaced by softer terms like “unfortunate.”
One veteran leader even came out of the shower and headed to his locker while whistling. Past the graveyard of this season, perhaps, but whistling nonetheless.
“I don’t have any opinion on how people handle losses,” defensive captain Brian Burns said of the odd mood. “I feel like earlier in the season there was more to fight for, more of an opportunity to get a win streak going, to get on a roll. That may play a part in that. But I don’t police people on how they handle a loss.”
There was one notable exception to this haze of happenstance, however. One player who refused to accept the losing.
Coming off the field, walking through the locker room, making his way out of the stadium, Jaxson Dart, the rookie quarterback, stewed.
“I just want to win bad,” he said of his foul reaction to the latest loss. “I mean, that's just really what it comes down to.”
In a season in which very few of the things the Giants have strived to achieve have come within their reach, that is exactly what the team needs to maintain from its most significant player moving forward. And it sets up a manageable goal for the remaining three games.
There is one of two things the Giants need to make sure they accomplish in these three remaining games. Winning them is first and that would be nice, but short of that, not allowing Dart to slip into the ennui and numbness to losing that has enveloped the rest of the locker room is of paramount importance.
Dart seems far from falling off that ledge. He takes the losing hard. He still seems to hate it deeply. That’s probably not great for him since there has been a lot of it to digest, but it is good for the Giants that he still abhors defeat in such a way.
Others are allowed to smile and shrug and even whistle a bit after losses and it won’t change the future prospects of the Giants. But if Dart starts to join them, if this losing ceases to sting his soul, it’ll be a red alarm for the organization that they might be on the verge of ruining yet another promising quarterback and spoiling the one good thing they have going for them.
This is all new to Dart. He had success in high school and college. The Giants have lost more games this season than he did in his three years at the University of Mississippi. He’s also missed time due to the concussion he suffered last month. He’s played almost all of this season without the best receiver on the team in Malik Nabers, he lost his best pal and running back Cam Skattebo to an injury, and the head coach with whom he had a very close bond was fired. Besides those two games he actually helped the Giants win, he has left the field with the lead in two others, both against playoff-bound teams on the road in Denver and Chicago, only to have his defense cough up the advantage.
Since the last time the Giants won a game, back on Oct. 9, every other team in the league has won at least once but them. In terms of days they have the longest losing streak in the NFL. At least we don’t have to employ one of those silly “even the Yankees have won more recently” gimmicks to describe the Giants’ long losing streak; the Yankees’ last win came two days before the Giants’.
It’s a lot to process. Making sense of it is just as difficult as the losing itself. Dart is trying.
“I definitely have an optimistic perspective on where this place is going to be eventually,” Dart said of the Giants. “And I think that every road is not the same. You're going to face some struggle. I know that when we get to a certain point, I'm going to appreciate a lot of the adversity that was faced because you're going to enjoy and understand how hard it is to win in this league. Obviously we want it now and a lot of things haven't really gone our way this year. But I know that eventually we're going to reach the place that we want to be.”
Dart said he understands that it is easier for him to feel that way. “Fortunately for me, I'm really young,” he said.
There are plenty of players on the team who aren’t. There are many who have been through turmoil with this franchise or others for years now, who have known nothing but losing in their careers, and other vets who may not be around by the point the Giants next see winning times. Dart appreciates that, too. He understands why not everyone sulks and cringes and gets all tortured up over the losses the way he does.
“We have a really mature team and [losing] is definitely hard, but we're trying our best to overcome it and take the right mindset for steps forward,” he said.
So he lets them deal with the losing in their own ways. And more importantly he deals with it in his.
They may not win another game this season but as long as Dart’s mindset remains unchanged, the Giants can call that a victory.
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.
