Despite many believing the New York Giants are trending toward starting Jaxson Dart over Russell Wilson, the rookie quarterback entered the first day of training camp playing with the third team.
While Dart can certainly improve his spot on the depth chart, just as he did during the spring practices, the rookie isn’t starting training camp getting reps with the starters.
Because of that, the veteran quarterback Russell Wilson had a chance to stand back and watch Dart and that unit go to work. He evaluated their performance after day one of practice wrapped up.
“Guys did well,” Wilson told reporters. “They executed, they made plays. I thought, offensively, there are some highs and lows throughout those moments. I thought we did a good job of just staying the course.”
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Dart went viral on Wednesday afternoon as a video captured the rookie throwing a pick-six. Considering it’s his first NFL training camp, growing pains are inevitable. It might be difficult to acquire patience from a hungry fan base in New York, but there was a lot of optimism from Wilson, especially beyond his evaluation of the backups.
“It was a great first day. I thought we did a really good job. I thought we executed well. I thought we did some really good things,” Wilson said, regarding the first team.
“There are always some things that we can get better at on the first day. I thought we did a really good job. Obviously, Wan’Dale [Robinson] on the first play, scoring a sweet touchdown. … I thought Malik [Nabers] had two or three nice touchdowns. Some guys made some big-time plays. [Tyrone] Tracy had a good day, getting in the end zone. I thought the offensive line did a great job communicating and being crisp. We’re just so much further ahead than where we were in OTAs, but we still got more to go. So, that’s the good part.”
Since the start of OTAs, Wilson was praised by his teammates and the local media for the value he brought to the table early on. While he struggled with his last two teams in Denver and Pittsburgh, Wilson looks forward to offering the Giants experience and consistency in 2025. So far, they are on the right path.
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