Here is the thing about Jaxson Dart: He is not exactly a skeptic.
As in, if he meets you, there’s a good chance he will get along with you and find something nice to say about you.
And so, as the Giants went through interviews for their head coaching vacancy, Dart, if he was in the area, stopped into the team facility to say hello and meet the guys who wanted the job.
That all went smoothly, but it was not extremely enlightening when Dart was later asked what he thought of the candidates.
“Jaxson’s very positive, so everybody he talked to, he loved,’’ general manager Joe Schoen said Tuesday after he formally introduced John Harbaugh as the 21st head coach in Giants history.
Dart was one of the strongest magnets to attract Harbaugh to a team coming off a 4-13 season. Harbaugh after 18 years was fired by the Ravens on Jan. 6 and he immediately went to work scouting the teams he might be interested in joining — they all wanted him. He essentially had only two starting quarterbacks during his time in Baltimore — Joe Flacco and Lamar Jackson.
He took a long, hard look at Dart and came away impressed.
“The quarterback is kind of important,’’ Harbaugh said. “That’s kind of a big deal. I’m excited about Jaxson Dart.
“It starts with the quarterback for sure. You build your team around your quarterback. You build your team around your players and what they do well. I like the way he plays. I like his talent, skill set, all the things he’s accomplished, but more than that, I like who he is and what he’s about. To me, he’s about football. This young guy loves football. … He wants to talk football all the time and that’s kind of what I like doing too. So, I think we’re going to have a lot of great conversations. I can’t wait to get started with him.’’
Dart went 4-8 as a rookie starter, with 24 total touchdowns (15 passing, nine rushing) and only five interceptions.
The Giants knew that Dart would be an asset in their pursuit of Harbaugh and made sure to connect them early and often in the process.
Nevertheless, Dart beat them to it.
“He had had a conversation on the phone with Coach Harbaugh that we didn’t set it up,’’ Schoen said. “They did it on their own, which was pretty cool. And then they spent some time together during the [in-person] interview. Two guys that love ball. We had to pull them out of the room because we had to speed things along.”
There will be plenty of time for Harbaugh and Dart to continue those conversations.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
