Gillette Stadium (Foxborough, Mass.) — Most NFL plays are forgettable, lost in the shuffle of the 100-something set pieces throughout a game. But sometimes a play shows up on film that tells everything you need to know about a player and a team. Jaxson Dart’s 12-yard rush — and the New York Giants’ reaction — revealed a series of unfortunate truths.
On second-and-13 in the first quarter Monday night, Dart was flushed out of the pocket and scrambled upfield and toward the sideline. It was the rookie quarterback’s first game back from a concussion, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity for him to step out of bounds and show the football world what he’s learned about self-preservation. But rather than duck out of bounds, Dart set his foot into the turf — in-bounds — and attempted to pick up a first down.
Patriots linebacker Christian Elliss saw Dart plant that foot and did what he’s been trained to do. He executed a hit that put the league back 10 years. It was a legal hit — but, because it was against a quarterback, it was the type of collision the NFL has done everything it can do to remove from the game. But Dart didn’t make the rules work for him. And so …
“I mean, what am I supposed to do?” Elliss said.
Elliss knocked Dart into a barrel roll toward his own bench, which cleared as Giants players retaliated for what they felt was an unfair hit. But again, it wasn’t. And so it was New York — not New England — that drew an unnecessary roughness flag.
The irony.
Was Elliss trying to send a message to Dart?
“Make sure to slide,” he said.
Surely, Giants interim coach Mike Kakfa pulled Dart aside to remind him of his importance to the team. Surely, Kakfa and Dart got on the same page.
Right?
“Obviously [I] don’t want him to take any hits that are unnecessary, but he was working his way out of bounds,” Kafka said.
Wait, was he?
“I was trying to get a first down,” Dart said after the game.
That’s what I thought. So does Dart regret his decision to turn upfield there?
“No,” he said. “We’re not playing soccer out here. … I played like this my whole life. Turn on my high school tape, turn on my college tape, it’s not a shocker to anybody. It’s how I’ve played.”
He added: “I took one hit that people are talking about.”
One hit like that is enough to end a season.
It was the Giants who were flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after the big hit on Jaxson Dart. (Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
There are a few issues this play presents. Let’s rattle them off.
First, the Giants have a recently concussed quarterback and a first-round draft pick who risked his health to pick up a first down (on second down) in the first quarter. That’s a clear decision-making error. Ask Josh Allen. Ask Lamar Jackson. It’s one thing to play fiery. It’s another thing to play with fire — that’s when you get burnt.
Second, the Giants have a coach who failed to call out the issue — at least publicly — and was on a totally different page with the QB after the game about what happened on the play. Dart was going for a first down, and Kakfa didn’t seem to know that. Or he knew that and didn’t want to publicly hold his star player accountable. Neither is a sign of a functional organization.
And third, you have a quarterback who cannot see the forest for the trees. Quarterbacks don’t come to the NFL fully formed. They need to develop, and in this case, Dart’s coach isn’t forcing him to face his mistakes. So can the rookie do it himself? Can he at least get a handle of where he’ll need to grow? Elliss’ hit should have knocked some sense into Dart. But he appears to be doubling down on his dangerous playing style.
“I’m going to keep playing aggressive,” Dart said. “Hopefully everybody can take a second to watch my tape going back to high school and realize that this is not a shock.”
He’s wrong if he thinks that doing it the way he did it in high school will work in the NFL. It won’t. Not in terms of preparation. Not in terms of throwing mechanics. Not in terms of reading defenses. And not in terms of running the football.
There are so many different ways a quarterback needs to develop. Understanding and avoiding unecessary danger is one of them.
NFL defenses boast some of the best athletes on the planet. They don’t get the chance to hit a quarterback more than a few times a year, so when they get that opportunity, they make it count.
It’s not just that another concussion would remove Dart from this game (and potentially multiple games), thereby sacrificing important snaps for his development. It’s all the other things that go with concussion protocol, in some cases keeping players out of team meetings and away from screens. That’s right: no film study.
If you’re willing to excuse Dart’s aggressiveness, then let’s take a look at the other team’s reaction to the play. The Patriots are 11-2. They’re the picture of success, in part because they’ve lifted themselves out of the exact situation that Dart and Kakfa are in. Quarterback Drake Maye — who suffered a concussion in a very similar way last year — is taking fewer risks as a runner.
“It’s a weekly reminder to the quarterback, our quarterback,” Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said postgame. “We show them every week, I wouldn’t get too cute over there by the sidelines. It happens every week.”
And did Vrabel go over to Maye after the hit to use it as a coaching point?
“I don’t think he needed to,” Maye said. “You heard the hit from the sideline. I think everybody in the stadium knew.”
Somehow, Dart didn’t.
And nobody went over to tell him either.
With coaching firings seemingly every week now, the Giants are in a state of desperation. So Dart is in an unstable environment where it seems shrewd to risk a concussion to help his team get a win — to help his coaches get a win. To save their jobs. But in turn, the Giants and their quarterback have forgotten the key objective of the season: to develop the first-round QB.
What we saw — and what we heard — was Dart’s rejection of that development.
Before joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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