ARLINGTON, Tex. — While Russell Wilson and the Giants offense had downfield success in Sunday’s passing game, they did not excel in the red zone.
They failed to score a touchdown on their first four red zone trips, settling for three Graham Gano field goals and turning the ball over once on downs.
So Brian Daboll dialed up Jaxson Dart’s first NFL snap on the Cowboys’ 25-yard line in the fourth quarter to fix the Giants’ red zone woes.
And it worked.
On 1st and 10 with 12:51 to play in the fourth quarter, Dart handed the ball to rookie running back Cam Skattebo on a read option out of a pistol formation.
The threat of Dart as a runner opened a hole for Skattebo to rumble 24 yards through a gaping hole to the 1-yard line. Then Wilson handed to Skattebo on the next play for the back’s first touchdown and a 23-20 Giants lead.
“They came up and told me red zone wise to be prepared to get in, in short yardage stuff,” Dart said of what Daboll and the Giants’ coaches told him at the start of the drive. “So that was the conversation, and [Daboll was] explaining from a coaching lens what we’re gonna run.”
Dart played three total snaps in his first NFL action.
He later handed off to Tyrone Tracy Jr. for a 3-yard gain out of shotgun from the Giants’ 46-yard line — he might have had space to run if he’d kept it.
And he slipped for a 3-yard loss on another shotgun read option with Skattebo from the Dallas 32-yard line with Cowboys linebacker Kenneth Murray Jr. bearing down.
“Turf monster,” Dart said with a smirk.
The thrill of his first NFL regular season action wasn’t lost on Dart, but he was subdued at his locker and much more focused on the “sting” of the overtime defeat.
“Obviously just being out there is a cool accomplishment,” Dart said. “After the game I just feel bad. I feel for the guys. We work our ass off all week, all offseason, and to lose like that and have chances to win, I think it just stings throughout the whole locker room, for sure.”
Although Dart played a minor part in the game, it was noteworthy that he played at all given an apparent internal Giants dispute over the Giants’ QBs.
Daboll initially declined to endorse Russell Wilson as the starter after the Week 1 loss to Washington.
Someone above Daboll in the Giants’ organization tried to correct the coach’s uncertainty with a leak to ESPN on Saturday that there was “no sense of urgency” to bench Wilson for Dart.
Wilson responded by having one of the games of his life. And Daboll STILL put Dart into Sunday’s game.
This drama is not going away, even with Wilson playing the way he did at Dallas and Dart staying humble about his role.
“Russ is a future Hall of Famer, so I never really understood the criticism that was thrown around there about him,” Dart said. “I get to see it on a daily basis, how good he is: The clutch situations, and him putting the ball in positions to where only our guys can catch it.”
“He’s still an elite player,” the rookie added.
With an eye on Dart eventually taking over, it was exciting that his first NFL snap resulted in such a positive play.
“It was a zone read play,” Dart explained. “I just tried to carry off my fake based on my read, which was a good read, and then got a little bit of some linebacker flow. And I was able to open things up. And our O-Line did a great job of exploiting a little mistake that they made. Skatt made a great run, as well.”
Dart was asked if any Cowboys defensive players trash-talked him as a rookie seeing his first NFL action.
“No, there was none of that,” he said with a smile. “I felt like during those drives everybody was a little tired.”
This clearly wasn’t just a one-off for Dart, either. Even if Wilson remains the starter, using Dart in the red zone and short yardage undoubtedly is an option Daboll and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka view as an extra weapon again in Week 3 against the Chiefs and beyond.
“You just have two playmakers, guys who run the ball well and run the ball physically,” Dart said of him and Skattebo as a duo that hopefully will be doing this together for a long time. “So in those short yardage situations, I feel like we kind of have an advantage just by our abilities.”
The best part of Dart’s NFL debut, though, might have been how he carried the loss after the game: he gave off starting quarterback energy.
He wore the defeat as if he’d played the entire game. He took accountability for it and felt it. And he spoke as the eventual leader of this team, vowing to help turn things around no matter what his role is in the upcoming games.
“S–t, um, it just sucks,” Dart said of the loss. “It’s like we had so many opportunities to win. I thought guys just really battled. So it stings in here. But I’m really confident in our guys and in our locker room to turn this thing around.”
“Things are gonna get right,” Dart promised. “Just gotta capitalize on some opportunities.”
