Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart is less than a full week into his first NFL training camp, but he can already feel things changing for him.
Reporters at Sunday’s practice marked it as Dart’s best one on the field since the Giants traded up to draft him in the first round this April. After the session, Dart said in a press conference that he is “learning every second” he’s around Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston, and Tommy DeVito and that is allowing him to process the game at a progressively higher level.
“I felt like it slowed down just a little bit,” Dart said, via a transcript from the team. “That first day, even a little bit the second day, there were just some plays that I hadn’t really run before. You’re getting mixed in with different groups of guys who you don’t have a ton of reps with, so you’re just trying to get that timing down with everybody. But I feel like today, going into it, I felt confident in the different installs that we had and I felt at the same time the coaches gave me a lot of freedom, so I was able to make some checks that I wanted to and I feel like that just allowed me to play just faster and be able to make quicker decisions.”
Giants head coach Brian Daboll has made it clear that Wilson is the starter, but he’s been less definitive about the No. 2 role. Dart said that he’s focused on executing plays to the best of his ability and is “not thinking about all the other stuff of what may happen if I play bad this day or I play good this day,” but those following the team will be doing that and Dart landing the backup role would make his eventual ascension to the starting lineup a background storyline throughout the regular season.