The New York Giants are not going to coach the running out of Jaxson Dart. In comments relayed this week by Pro Football Talk, head coach John Harbaugh said his second-year quarterback can “live in a lot of different worlds” — under center, shotgun and pistol — and that the versatility opens up play-action, run-pass options and quarterback-driven runs in the offense the Giants are installing this summer.
The staffing behind that plan is the substantive part. Greg Roman is on Harbaugh’s staff as an offensive assistant and run game coordinator, and Roman’s résumé is the closest thing the league has to a manual for this style: he was Baltimore’s offensive coordinator for the three seasons in which Lamar Jackson logged more than 100 designed rushing attempts per year. Dart’s rookie usage looked nothing like that. Per Big Blue View, he had 29 designed rushing attempts all season, with most of his ground production coming on 38 scrambles. If Roman’s influence shows up the way it did in Baltimore, that designed-run number has room to multiply.
Harbaugh paired the ambition with a caveat: the offense will also do more to keep Dart out of harm’s way, and Dart, he said, understands the importance of staying healthy. Giants fans have earned the right to hear that part skeptically. This is the same roster that lost Malik Nabers and Cam Skattebo to major injuries last season — both are still working back — and the franchise quarterback is the one player this team cannot rehab its way around. A Lamar-style workload is a real weapon; it also puts the plan’s injury math on the front office and the play caller, not the fan base’s patience.
The answers start arriving soon. Rookies report to camp at The Greenbrier on July 23 and veterans follow July 28, and how much designed quarterback run shows up in padded practices will say more than any July podcast.
For fantasy purposes, rushing volume is the cheat code for quarterback scoring, and Dart is being drafted well outside the range where a 100-carry season would price him. If camp reports confirm the Roman-style usage, he becomes one of the better late-round upside picks at the position — with the health risk Harbaugh himself acknowledged priced in.
— Rosie Meadow
