Jaxson Dart feels like he is being singled out.
The Giants’ rookie quarterback was sent to the blue medical tent for yet another concussion evaluation in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 29-21 loss to the Washington Commanders.
And after the Giants’ eighth straight loss, Dart vented his frustration with being removed on 2nd and goal by Sunday’s NFL officials, causing him to miss two plays as he quickly cleared the protocol.
“I’m not really sure what the reason was I had to come out of the game,” Dart said after the Giants slipped to 2-12. “It was just really weird. I don’t understand it.”
Interim head coach Mike Kafka said the officials made Dart leave the field to get tested.
Dart, 22, admitted he feels like he is being watched extra closely by the league and its concussion spotters and officials due to the loud public discourse about his ability to stay safe as a runner.
“Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “I mean, you don’t just see people getting taken out of the game like that. So I definitely feel like there’s a sensitivity for some reason.”
Dart now has been evaluated for a concussion five times since he entered the NFL in August: once in the preseason and four times during the regular season.
He has one diagnosed concussion so far as a pro on Nov. 9 in Chicago that sidelined him for two games.
He has expressed frustration with being pulled from games before, but he especially thought that his removal on Sunday came at an especially costly and pivotal time.
“This definitely wasn’t the first time that I’ve been surprised that I had to come out, but I was definitely surprised,” he said. “I just didn’t feel like it was that big a hit at all. Obviously the situation we were in, too, first and goal, that’s a big thing that happens in the game. So I was definitely surprised.”
The play happened with 11:38 remaining in the fourth quarter and the Giants trailing, 29-14. It was 1st and goal at the Washington 1.
Dart claimed his running was not a part of Kafka’s initial play call.
The quarterback said the coach called “a little trick pass” and when it didn’t work, he “didn’t want to make a bad play worse by forcing the ball, so I just tried to get back to the line of scrimmage.”
Kafka waffled. He said the play was “him or nobody” and added that Dart had “tried to get back to the line of scrimmage on the run, which we’ve talked about, too. But it’s not like a designed run.”
Regardless, when Dart ducked down at the end of the play, his head and neck were folded backward awkwardly on a joint tackle by Washington defensive linemen Eddie Goldman and Javon Kinlaw.
The Giants’ medical team shortly after escorted Dart off the field to examine him in the blue medical tent while Jameis Winston stepped in to run two plays at QB.
Dart returned to the game quickly for a failed fourth down try, perplexed at what the officials thought they’d seen on the play.
It’s obviously a positive anytime the NFL prioritizes player safety. But it’s admittedly unusual that Dart was allowed to remain in that Nov. 9 loss in Chicago after clearly hitting his head and lying motionless on the ground — and being removed and diagnosed with a concussion late — and now he’s being taken off the field for something much less obvious.
The league and NFL players’ association demonstrated no transparency coming out of the mishandling of Dart’s concussion in Chicago. Is it possible Dart’s removal on Sunday was an overcorrection and part of an emphasis coming out of that situation?
“Hmmm, I’m not sure for the reason,” Dart said. “I think that’ll just be something that hopefully can get communicated. I’m not really sure, to be honest, why that happened.”
The Giants (2-12) certainly have made a conscious effort to design fewer runs for Dart since he returned from his concussion in the Giants’ blowout loss at New England before the bye.
But eventually Dart had to use his legs and scramble more on Sunday because the pocket passing game wasn’t effective early. And even though he made some nice throws, he was inconsistent and had some costly underthrows.
He threw an interception to Commanders corner Mike Sainstril late in the second quarter to set up a Washington field goal. And he missed some throws for a turnover on downs at the end of the game to drop the Giants to 1-4 in the division.
“I take accountability for this one,” Dart said. “I didn’t play well enough today for this team to win. So I gotta be better, especially in that situation. I didn’t play good enough for our team today.”
On the plus side, fellow rookie Abdul Carter, the Giants’ No. 3 overall pick, came alive for seven tackles, a sack, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery in his most active game of his first NFL season.
But the Giants allowed 29 points to a Washington (4-10) team that had lost eight in a row and had been shut out, 31-0, the previous week by the Minnesota Vikings.
The Giants have lost eight straight, and they have three games remaining: home against the Vikings next Sunday, on the road at the Raiders in Week 17 and home against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 18.
“If we just got the win, it would make it a lot better,” Carter said of Kafka praising his work. “So that’s what I’m thinking about. I wish we got the win.”
Special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial’s unit was horrendous again.
They allowed a punt return for a touchdown for a second straight game, a 63-yarder from Washington’s Jaylin Lane, on a line drive kick by new punter Cameron Johnston. And kicker Younghoe Koo missed two field goal attempts from 52 and 51 yards.
All three sides of the ball chipped in to the dysfunction. On defense, there was a poor tackling effort by corner Paulson Adebo on a long Terry McLaurin touchdown pass from Marcus Mariota. And on offense, right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor at one point had a three-play sequence of allowing a QB hit and a sack followed by committing a false start.
Washington kept losing players to injury throughout the game, but it didn’t matter.
The Giants fell to 5-18-1 (.208) in the NFC East since Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll took over the franchise in 2022. And they now have a losing record against all three of their NFC East foes in those four years: 0-7 against the Cowboys, 2-7 against the Eagles and 3-4-1 against Washington.
Dart is trying to will the Giants out of this malaise. When the Giants trailed 13-0 early, he even had a 29-yard run downfield where he refused to slide and decided to take on a couple of defenders while fighting for more yards and eyeing the end zone.
He did slide on his next scramble, though, and yet there he was in the fourth quarter, ducking down for cover and still taking a hit and being sent to the medical tent for an evaluation.
“I mean, I don’t know [what I can do differently], maybe just run the other way,” Dart said. “I have no idea. Not sure.”
He would welcome more designed runs, as the Giants used him earlier this season, if they returned to that strategy.
“I’m a competitor,” he said. “I want the ball in my hands. I definitely feel comfortable and confident running the ball.”
But he said he has “confidence in the guys around me,” and he’ll run whatever play Kafka calls.
The question is what Dart can do to prevent being singled out as a health risk, especially if a hit that he considered minor is leading to his removal from games.
His name, at the moment, is synonymous nationally with the NFL’s concussion issue and management. That’s not a good place to be for a quarterback whose athleticism is one of his greatest traits — and who is searching for answers to channel the “frustration” of this losing into solutions for the future for both him and the team.
“It’s definitely tough,” Dart said. “I’m not gonna talk around it. It’s definitely tough. But the only thing we can do is come back into the facility, prepare even harder and continue to try to learn.
“I know this isn’t gonna be the case for the future, and things are gonna eventually turn around,” he continued. “I definitely have that in my mind. But as a team, we want to get that switched immediately.”
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
