Russell Wilson’s poor performance through the first three weeks of the season has been a major headline. It’s gotten to the point where New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll is going to sit him and start rookie Jaxson Dart next game. But Chad Johnson thinks that decision could be a mistake.
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Everyone figured the Giants would turn to Dart sooner rather than later. The team took him with the 25th overall pick in the draft and seemed ecstatic to get him. And now, Daboll has officially made the switch.
However, former Bengals wideout Chad Johnson doesn’t believe pushing Dart into the mix this early is the right move.
“Do you really want to throw [Dart] out there right now and mess with his conscience?” Johnson questioned on Nightcap.
His co-host, Shannon Sharpe, then responded by saying that it was Ocho who had said that players can’t learn from the bench. So, he believes that Dart should be starting and at least getting experience. But Johnson pushed back again.
“Throwing him out there to the wolves like that. You know what you can lose? Your goddamn confidence,” he added.
Sharpe responded by saying that if Dart loses his confidence after one bad start, he probably isn’t the franchise QB anyway. But Johnson pushed back, arguing that the Giants are already a bad team and a quarterback change isn’t going to fix anything. If anything, he believes it’ll only hurt them more and hinder Dart’s development.
Regardless, Johnson agreed that Wilson cannot remain the Giants’ starter after his pitiful display against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night. He also suggested the team should turn to Jameis Winston instead of Dart.
“I would go to Jameis,” Johnson said, scratching his head. “If you want to make a quarterback change, I would go to Jameis and continue to allow, you know, Mahomes did it with Alex Smith. Allow him to be able to continue to develop, being able to get those mental reps from the sideline.”
It’s not the worst advice coming from the former wideout. Some of the best QBs in recent memory had to sit and learn for at least one full season before being tossed into the action. But this is a different story.
Daboll and his Giants are 0-3. Being in New York, they’ve faced heavy criticism in the media because things were supposed to look better than this. Daboll is on the hot seat and could lose his job after any loss moving forward. That’s why it’s not surprising to see him turn to Dart to see if he can help the team win some games and inject some excitement into the franchise.
“I’ve always felt that Jaxson Dart was going to start sooner rather than later,” as Sharpe stated.
Winston has had a fun run in recent seasons as a journeyman QB, but he’s a nomad for a reason. We all know that he’s turnover-prone and isn’t bringing anything new to the table that we haven’t already seen. It’s time for Dart to show us the potential upside that he has, rather than the capped potential we know Winston has.
Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see if the Giants can pick up some wins with Dart at the helm. They have a tough matchup this week against the Los Angeles Chargers. But things should get easier for them the week after, when they take on the New Orleans Saints. So, while Johnson is afraid of the rookie being tossed to the wolves, it’s not the most daunting first two starts of an NFL career.
