I want to start this off by apologizing to all of the Giants fans who are reading. I went into this film study and charting process with the hopes that Jaxson Dart would surprise me and give me more clarity.
Spoiler alert: I was very surprised and gained minimal clarity.
Success Rate by Route
Route Percentage
Dart threw the deep ball more than any other second-year quarterback at 15.6%, but his success rate was the lowest amongst the second-year passers at just 32.7%. Something that won’t show up in the data is how apprehensive Dart gets when he is trying to throw to the middle of the field, especially on deep routes. There were so many times in his film where I had to stop and ask, “Why is he not throwing to this guy?! He’s wide open!” My frustrations watching the film came from his class-worst 7.5% target rate to the middle part of the field between 10-19 yards. In that area, there were a lot of dig routes that he would avoid. It’s not like he was terrible with those throws either; he had a very average 60% success rate on those types of throws.
In most cases, Dart would miss an open backside dig route in favor of a completely covered nine route. This is something you can actually see pretty easily when you look at the percentages at which he threw both of those passes. Dart threw the lowest amount of dig routes at just 4.8%, while also throwing the highest rate of posts, corners, and nine routes.
It’s important to remember that these are just moments that stand out and not the full scope of the data. Dart actually threw the most passes to the deep middle of the field, at 4.8%, but he struggled on those passes with the lowest success rate among the class at just 31.2%.
I guess my frustration is that, despite the shaky accuracy, Dart can hit these throws when he actually locks into them. The issue becomes his vision of the field when he gets pressured out of the pocket.
Success Rate Heat Map
Ironically, Dart had the worst success rate among the class on slants and nine routes. These routes in particular don’t require him to leave the pocket typically. He’s a tough quarterback to get a read on.
But at least there’s one thing Dart can hang his hat on; he loves to throw the ball to the outside.
There were three routes in particular that Dart utilized: flats, outs, and corners. These routes lend themselves to some pretty interesting flood concepts that the Giants can use with their new big-bodied pass catchers. Last season, Dart targeted Theo Johnson quite a bit. Now the Giants have added Isaiah likely in free agency and Malachi Fields in the NFL draft. This gives Dart a trio of big pass-catchers that can win contested catches and run the flood concept routes that he loves to throw so much.
By running more of these concepts, we’ll likely see Dart’s throws outside of the pocket improve quite a bit.
For all of his athleticism and arm talent, Dart really struggles to throw on the run. More often than not, when he does run out of the pocket, he’s simply deciding to take off running rather than throwing the football.
He had the lowest rate of throws outside of the pocket at just 10.8%. A lot of that has to do with the play-calling and the Giants’ offensive line being really good. I’m not really worried about whether or not he leaves the pocket. I’m more concerned with how he does when he has to leave the pocket. His 55.5% success rate is second-worst in the class and far behind the 71% and 72% success rates of Cam Ward and Tyler Shough.
If all of that didn’t sound bad enough, the most concerning metric regarding Jaxson Dart as a starting NFL quarterback is his very poor success rate against the blitz. He was pressured on just 10.2% of his drop-backs – the lowest amongst this group. However, his success rate against pressure was catastrophically low at 32.3% lowest amongst the second-year quarterbacks by a nearly 20% margin.
His struggles against the blitz are directly tied to his struggles in clutch situations on third downs and late in games. Dart was the worst in this class in clutch situations by once again a very wide margin. His 31.4% success rate in clutch scenarios was 10% worse than that of the next quarterback, Shedeur Sanders and 32% worse than class-leading Cam Ward.
While I may not love the Giants for fantasy football this year. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about their offense, making a jump. The offensive line is pretty good, the team added pass catchers, and John Harbaugh is generally a winning coach.
The funny thing is that the new Giants offensive coordinator, Matt Nagy, has had a very all-or-nothing approach to his offenses throughout his career. Nagy has had top 10 offenses with Patrick Mahomes, Alex Smith and Mitchell Trubisky, but he has also had bottom 10 offenses with Trubisky, Nick Foles, Justin Fields, and Andy Dalton. Nagy isn’t exactly the quarterback whisperer that some thought he was. So which side of the pendulum does Jaxson Dart swing to? Is he more Patrick Mahomes or Mitchell Trubisky? We’ll know soon enough.
With the injuries surrounding the Giants offense and the new system being put in place, I worry that Dart won’t make the leap until he learns to be comfortable throwing over the middle of the field and remaining accurate under pressure. Sorry Giants fans, but I think I’m out on Jaxson Dart.
