Brian Daboll was in no mood to discuss a potential change at starting quarterback, but his New York Giants’ 22-9 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night might just have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
It wasn’t so much the fact that the Giants were beaten in uninspiring fashion to drop to 0-3 on the season. Nor was it necessarily Russell Wilson going only 18-of-3 for 160 yards with no touchdowns and two interceptions.
Instead, it was rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart entering the field for three snaps.
Granted, Dart did not do much on those three snaps. His first, coming with 6:54 left in the third quarter and the Giants already trailing 16-6, saw him gain three yards on a scramble before giving way to Wilson again. The other two in the early fourth quarter were both handoffs to fellow rookie Cam Skattebo.
Based on the stat sheet, there is nothing to suggest that Dart would be a threat to an experienced starting QB like Wilson who had a very strong outing just one week prior. However, football is an intricate game and the tiniest elements can lead to change — elements such as the crowd reacting to the product on the field in a team’s home opener led by a head coach who was about to become 18-35-1 in four seasons at the helm.
The “We want Dart!” chants started reverberating through MetLife Stadium in the second quarter, after Wilson threw his second interception of the day. When the fans finally, albeit briefly, got their wish, there was a clear mood change inside the Giants’ home arena — one that quickly gave way to boos when Dart was pulled again.
“Look, I would be booing, too, to be honest with you, in terms of not being good enough, not scoring, not finishing,” Daboll said after the game. “I understand that. That’s the nature of it. We got to do better.”
A head coach making decisions based on crowd reaction is not a winning formula. However, neither has been whatever the Giants have been doing over the last two-plus years. And with the seat under Brian Daboll getting hotter with every new loss, change does become inevitable. The only question is what it will look like, but Daboll does have some power over it: he can make his move before ownership feels the need to make another.
And so, at 0-3 and with Jaxson Dart now having a grand total of six NFL snaps on his résumé, it might be time to take off the training wheels. The only way is up, and the Giants obviously feel confident enough to give him some exposure on Sundays.
It’s not like Daboll himself is a non-believer either.
”Jaxson is progressing well,” he said on Sunday. “We’ll continue to work with him. I have a lot of confidence in him, his development that he’s had.”
As for Wilson, he has now completed blow 60 percent of his passes on the year and thrown 3 TDs as well as 3 INTs. Except for a game against the similarly-lackluster Cowboys in Week 2, he has not looked like a player capable of elevating the offense around him.
The result speaks for itself, and so does the reaction.
“There are highs and lows and always tough moments. You have to have thick skin, you know what I mean? You have to be able to know who you are, the player that you are, know what you’re capable of,” Wilson said during his post-game presser.
“Obviously I’ve been able to show that throughout my career and last week and everything else, too, what we’re capable of as an offense. I think they made a couple more plays than us today. I think it was a 9-6 game for most of the game. Pretty tight. We needed one or two big plays. Unfortunately didn’t come our way.”
For the Giants on Sunday, the magic number was neither one nor two. It was three: the snaps Dart took, and the hope that they brought.
