The New York Giants entered the 2025 offseason with one goal in mind: flip the quarterback room on its head. And one offseason later, it's out with the old and in with the new. Long gone are the Daniel Jones, Drew Lock, and Tommy DeVito (sad face) days. This group is now headlined by Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston, and preseason rookie sensation Jaxson Dart.
The hype for Dart is especially palpable after putting together the most impressive preseason stretch out of every rookie signal-caller. His final stat tally ran 32-of-47 (68.1%) for 372 yards and four touchdowns (three passing, one rushing), which resulted in a 113.1 quarterback rating from ESPN.
Wild what three preseason games can do for a narrative. You see, coming out of the draft, many skeptics didn't believe the 22-year-old was capable of being the future franchise QB. In fact, he hadn't even played a full preseason before NFL analysts were already calling for a change, looking squarely at Texas' star QB and Eli Manning's nephew, Arch Manning, to save the day. Well, let's just say if Manning's first 2025 college football start was any indication, the G-Men are perfectly fine.
Jaxson Dart giving Giants no reason to wait on Arch Manning
Manning's 2025 debut left a lot to be desired: 17-of-30 for 170 yards with one touchdown and one interception, resulting in a pretty abysmal 58.0 QBR. His efforts, or lack thereof, resulted in a 14-7 loss on the road to No. 3-ranked Ohio State.
Plenty of Giants fans wanted the team to punt on a QB just to chase Arch next year. Funny how life works.
Granted, starting your first road game ever at The Shoe (Ohio State's home venue) as they're coming off a National championship last year is no easy feat. Still, the optics don't look great. The 21-year-old has been billed as the second coming of Uncle Peyton, but on Saturday, he was anything but.
It is one game, so let's not get too ahead of ourselves here. He still has immense potential, and all signs point to him learning from this experience and continuing to be a great QB, but maybe just not for the Giants.
It's not just that Arch looked bad in one game — I refuse to overreact that much — it's more so what Dart's shown already that should silence the "tank for Manning" horde. Since camp, the Ole Miss product has done nothing but quiet the noise and climb the depth chart, while proving he's way further ahead of schedule than anyone thought he'd be, especially for right now.
Will one game define Arch Manning's draft outlook? It absolutely shouldn't. But we also shouldn't ignore what's taking place in East Rutherford as we speak. It finally feels like Big Blue has its QB of the future since the last time a Manning was behind center, and for that, there's no need to overcomplicate or overthink anything on that front.