Dart Saves Daboll? Dak Shines Through Chaos, and Drake Maye Looks Like Brady 2.0 | NFL Mailbag
Inside the NFL’s Turning Point Week: Dart’s Arrival, Dak’s Command, and Maye’s Mastery
It’s job-saving season in East Rutherford.
Jaxson Dart has infused not just a youthful excitement into a woebegone franchise, but a style of quarterback play that melds aggressive agility when escaping from a collapsing pocket, turning scrambles into first downs and touchdowns with a moxy fearlessness, heaving balls deep downfield to wide receivers with names like Lil’Jordan Humphrey and Jalin Hyatt.
Thursday night’s 34-17 teardown of the Philadelphia Eagles that more closely resembled a team prepared to implode on itself and a head coach it suddenly seems to have tuned out than the defending Super Bowl champions, wasn’t just Dart’s arrival as the toast of the town but has the feel of a harbinger of what could be to come for a roster that has quietly been built around young and explosive talent in recent years.
Suddenly, the broiling hot seat Brian Daboll had been sitting on just four days earlier with the scent of Cafe Du Monde beignets wafting in the air as the Giants slinked out of the Superdome as stunning upset losers to the Saints, has been replaced by an aura of anticipation of what Dart, fellow rookies Cam Skattebo, Abdul Carter and veterans like Brian Burns, Dexter Lawrence, and Kayvon Thibodeaux can become in the years ahead in the NFC East.
“Yes, and yes,” an agent with several clients on the Giants’ roster told me late Thursday when I asked if there is a scenario where Dart can play his way into saving both Daboll and Giants general manager Joe Schoen’s jobs. “It’s a matter of winning, and he’s showing he can do that.”
Dart’s 195 passing yards with a touchdown and 58 rushing yards and another score are mere footnotes to the vibes that his efficent play from the pocket and functionality in the scheme have ignited for a franchise that has gone just 18-32-1 since Daboll’s arrival.
“This guy’s all football,” Daboll told reporters, of Dart, Friday. “He’s very level headed but he’s a fiery competitor, which I appreciate. He’s humble. He’s also very humble. He knows that there’s plenty of things that we need to work on to continue to get better and that each week it’s going to get more difficult based on the more tape we have out there the more they’re going to do.
“We know there’s ups and downs. I’ve said it. I know it’s a broken record, but I think he understands all those things. I think the thing that his teammates appreciate about him is he is humble. He does work hard. He does listen to the older veterans on the team, but he is his own personality, and I don’t think he’s afraid to show that.”
Skattebo is a big piece of the puzzle Schoen and Daboll are putting together, too. The rookie running back from Arizona State rallies his teammates with his full-speed-ahead, bulldozing running style that saw him bust out for 98 yards and three scores in the win over Philly.
Defensively, Giants coordinator Shane Bowen ran circles around Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts by running some outrageous stunts leaning into the outrageous speed of Abdul Carter, Brian Burns, and Kayvon Thibodeaux up front that could serve as Big Blue’s blueprint for seasons to come.
There’s an asterisk to all of this, though.
The Eagles’ defense, beleaguered from last week’s 17-point collapse against Denver, was without game-wrecker Jalen Carter for the entire game and lost top corner Quinyon Mitchell in the first half.
Still, Dart, Skattebo, Thibodeaux, Daboll, and the Giants tore through the thin thread holding together an Eagles offense that’s been searching for an identity, and lately running out of excuses in recent weeks.
Suddenly, Daboll’s seat isn’t hot … it’s aligned. And sitting beside him is his quarterback, one who might just carry the Giants, and their rebuild, further than anyone imagined.
Inside this week’s mailbag; Drake Maye is off to a Hall of Famer’s pace this season, Dak Prescott is the Cowboys’ calm amid the chaos, and I get the chance to make some revised Super Bowl predictions … Let’s get after it!
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Are the Patriots for real? They have an easyish schedule; can they keep pace with the Bills to make their December rematch mean something? ( )
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