Those that solidify themselves as true franchise quarterbacks often find themselves in the proverbial war room, offering input and feedback on which players to acquire and who the team must avoid at all costs.
Based on Monday’s J.J. McCarthy trade, we’re not sure the New York Giants view Jaxson Dart in that light just yet.
Dart’s knee injury is expected to keep him out for the rest of the regular season, and the Giants had previously hinted they’d add a quarterback. But few envisioned them sending a fifth-rounder to the Vikings for McCarthy, who’d played his way out of Minnesota following injuries and percieved immaturity.
By no means are we proposing that McCarthy, who can become a free agent after next season, will replace Dart as the long-term quarterback. But that shouldn’t stop the Giants’ power players — specifically Dart and Joe Schoen — from taking off the gloves for a much-needed talk.
Jaxson Dart and New York Giants GM Joe Schoen must have a candid conversation about J.J. McCarthy
Put yourself in Dart’s shoes for a moment. You already have a reputation as an injury-prone quarterback and have been evaluated for concussions at least six times since the start of last year. In fact, those concussions played a significant role in Brian Daboll’s firing last November.
Now, the Giants just added another young quarterback who can’t stay healthy. Let’s also not forget that McCarthy played for John Harbaugh’s brother, Jim, at Michigan.
In other words: Your first NFL coach repeatedly put you in harm’s way, and his full-time replacement opted to trade for a 23-year-old intimately familiar with the Harbaugh family.
Immediately following this past spring’s draft, we pointed out that Harbaugh surprisingly elected not to take a late-round quarterback, as he often did in Baltimore. We revisited the point after Dart’s knee injury and acknowledged the difficulty of evaluating quarterbacks in the current college football climate.
But what happens if McCarthy wrestles the starting job away from Jameis Winston and, dare we say, plays well enough to keep the Giants in the playoff race?
Whether it’s within the coming days or when the season ends in January, Dart and Schoen must address the following questions:
- Do the Giants still genuinely view Dart as their franchise quarterback? Or should he plan on an open competition next offseason?
- What are their plans for McCarthy if he plays at an above-average level? Because Schoen must decide next spring if he’s going to pick up the Michigan product’s fifth-year option. Which leads us to…
- Regardless of what happens, does Schoen intend to carry both Dart and McCarthy on the 53-man roster next year?
- And if Dart were to request a trade, would the Giants consider finding him a new home?
Those might seem like overreactions, but the Giants just saw what happened with McCarthy in Minnesota. Rather than keep Sam Darnold, the Vikings let him leave for Seattle and opted to ride it out with their 2024 first-round pick.
Minnesota missed the playoffs last year, and Seattle won the Super Bowl. We have this very strong feeling that Schoen and the Giants would prefer to avoid following in the Vikings’ footsteps.
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