'Confident' Giants QB Jaxson Dart caps first NFL season trending up, eyeing more as pivotal offseason looms

Jaxson Dart's rookie NFL season ended Sunday with the quarterback trending up. The Giants' 34-17 Week 18 win over the Dallas Cowboys saw Dart continue to progress, completing 22 of 32 passes for 230 yards and two touchdowns while adding 32 rushing yards on five attempts.

The No. 25 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft ends his first year with 216 of 339 passes completed for 2,272 yards and 15 touchdowns against five interceptions. He attempted 86 rushes for 487 yards and nine touchdowns in 14 games (12 starts).

"He's a young quarterback, so you're going to go through those ups and downs," said interim coach Mike Kafka. "That's really normal. ... When he had a couple rough games, (we felt like) it's going to swing. I think Jaxson has done a good job of just staying with his process, going through and continuing to ramp up his communication with the players and continuing to work his tail off to get the little things cleaned up -- the details, his footwork, the mechanics, where his eyes (are), his eye progression.

"I thought Jaxson kind of blocked out all that noise, and you see just a player who is continuing to grow, continuing to learn. And the more reps he's getting, the more information he's going to bank. Now you can springboard that into the offseason where now he's going to continue to grow and learn and all those things we went through the first time around -- now he's seen it two, three, four times. Now that memory bank's going to kick in for him. He rarely makes the same mistake twice, so this is going to be a great offseason for him and it was a great way for him to cap off the season."

Dart rebounded from his season-worst Dec. 21 start against the Minnesota Vikings, a 16-13 Week 16 loss in which he completed 7 of 13 passes for 33 yards, with consecutive strong performances. Last Sunday, a 34-10 Week 17 win at the Las Vegas Raiders, Dart completed 22 of 30 passes for 207 yards while rushing nine times for 48 yards and two touchdowns.

"It's definitely a better feeling than it being flipped," Dart said. "But I'm confident in myself every time I step on the field. I feel like I'm a player who can shift the game, change it in a way for our team to win. And that's just the kind of confidence I have from how I prepare each and every day, how I compete, so I was proud of being able to bounce back from that Minnesota game -- to have two solid weeks, coming out with wins, going into this offseason, and things are going to change here, so we're going to start doing this a lot more."

Why makes Dart think that?

"'Cause there's no other option," he said. "That's how I see it. I'm not going to lead in a way that's not having the highest expectation in mind with everybody around me, and I know that we have guys in place who have that same mindset, and (rookie outside linebacker) Abdul (Carter) gave a talk at the end of us breaking it down as well. So, we just have that energy and that outlook that this is the only way it can go."

While the Giants await a decision on their next coach, they have a key piece to work with in Dart, according to Kafka.

"These are all the qualities that we saw very early on with him in the draft process," Kafka said. "And his ability after an interception or after a bad play -- what does he do the very next play? You study that, you look at it ... he has a very quick memory in that sense and that's a very good quality to have for a quarterback. When things go wrong, you flush it, you move on, you get back on track, you get back on the attack. And I think Jaxson -- I know Jaxson has that mindset of that aggressive mentality to do that, and he's shown it."