Big Blue View
The previously winless New York Giants did what most people thought they could not do on Sunday, knocking off the previously unbeaten Los Angeles Chargers. That was the good part, allowing the Giants to exhale and providing optimism that the season may not already be completely lost. The bad part, of course, was likely losing their best offensive player to season-ending injury.
Don’t put Dart in the Pro Football Hall of Fame just yet. Don’t assume Dart has proven he is a franchise quarterback who will lead the Giants back to prominence over the next decade or more.
Have hope, though. The rookie quarterback, I think, gave you that much on Sunday.
The Giants did not ask Dart to light up the sky on Sunday. He was 13 of 20 for just 111 yards. He ran 10 times for 54 yards, including a nifty 15-yard quarterback draw for a touchdown.
The Giants asked him for energy. He gave them that. They asked him to take care of the football. He did that, playing turnover free. Although, yes, he can thank Andrew Thomas for falling on his fumbled snap at the Giants’ 1-yard line.
Dart played with toughness, ignoring a second-quarter left hamstring injury that took much of the designed quarterback run game out of the Giants’ playbook. He took plenty of big hits, some his own fault for holding the ball too long or not getting down when he probably should have.
Maybe the most impressive thing Dart did on Sunday was complete a third-and-5 pass to Theo Johnson for 13 yards and a first down with 2:38 to play. It forced the Chargers to use their final timeout and allowed the Giants to run the clock down to :30 before punting.
How head coach Brian Daboll feels about Dart was evident in that he put the ball in Dart’s hands on the Giants’ most critical offensive play.
“I trust him,” Daboll said. “that’s his job as a quarterback, make good decisions. Convert, make the right choice. It wasn’t perfect, didn’t expect it to be in this first game.
“I think the young man played well within himself. Made a huge play when he needed to, to (tight end) Theo (Johnson), in that third-down play.”
The play is even more impressive when you learn that it was a route adjustment that Dart and Johnson came up with during the week.
“It’s interesting,” said head coach Brian Daboll. “With that play, it was a little bunch play. We’ve worked it one way for 10 years, as we run the play. And Dart sees me in the locker room right before I come out here, he’s like, on that play we ran, Theo and I talked about that, whatever it was yesterday or the day before, and if you get this look, I want you to sit. We normally don’t really sit on it.
“So that’s a credit to two young players playing the game and having...
