It was ugly when Jaxson Dart got absolutely rocked so hard during Saturday’s preseason game that he lay motionless on the field as team trainers and doctors rushed to his aid.
The moment looked like a snapshot from the 2025 season, when the New York Giants’ quarterback was hit over and over again. And, like a handful of times in 2025, this hit resulted in Dart being evaluated for a concussion out of concern for the player’s safety.
Dart had one confirmed concussion out of those five previous evaluations and missed two games as a result.
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“I never thought I was going to be taken out,” Dart said after the game. “I want to keep playing until they tell me I’m not playing. Like, I want to be out there.”
The Giants season flashed before everyone’s eyes until Dart emerged from the blue medical tent on the sideline after the evaluation that cleared him to return.
But the whole scene raises questions about what should and shouldn’t be expected in any team’s first preseason game.
- What were the Giants thinking putting their starting quarterback back out there after coach John Harbaugh saw the Vikings defense, authored by defensive coordinator Brian Flores, was coming after the Giants with multiple blitzes?
- Why was Flores using exotic calls — the hit on Dart came from safety Jay Ward, who rushed from his secondary spot — in the first quarter of the first preseason game?
- Was Flores unloading on the Giants because he still bears a grudge against that team?
- And why was Dart more disturbed at the medical evaluation than the Vikings blitzing and Giants blocking after the game?
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So, some answers:
Harbaugh said he had no hesitation about putting Dart back in the game and the quarterback told him he simply had the wind knocked out of him.
Harbaugh also said he was “honestly” surprised Dart was sent to the blue tent in the first place, but the job of doctors is to “err on the side of player safety.”
(Yes, especially when a sizable part of Dart’s rookie season felt like one long medical evaluation.)
We don’t know why the Vikings blitzed as many times and ways as they did this game. Flores is known for doing this. It’s his professional personality, one might argue.
And, no, professional football leaves no room for mercy from a defensive unit and its coaches toward an opposing offense, its quarterback or its coaches.
It was the running back Tyrone Tracy’s job to pick up the blitz by Ward.
Harbaugh, in fact, said his reaction to seeing his starting quarterback practically knocked into next week on the safety blitz was simple: “My feeling in that moment was we need to block better.”
But context here is necessary.
“Preseason football, you just don’t expect all these looks your first game out,” Giants analyst Phil Simms said on the broadcast.
And Flores, who unleashed those looks, is no fan of the Giants — or the Miami Dolphins, Houston Texans, Denver Broncos, Stephen Ross or John Elway, all of whom he named as defendants in his 2022 racial discrimination lawsuit.
That suit, by the way, is ongoing four years later, so Flores is still pressing the issue.
And it doesn’t stretch credibility to think he might have wanted to make things difficult for the Giants based on the feelings he outlined in that suit.
The Giants, you may recall, presented perhaps the most vocal pushback against Flores when he claimed they discriminated against him when Brian Daboll was hired. Flores claimed the club used him for purposes of a sham Rooney Rule interview when it was already decided Daboll would get the job.
The Giants offered an unequivocal denial, saying the claims Flores made were “disturbing and simply false.”
So it wouldn’t be surprising if Flores were still holding on to some resentment, given that he’s a prideful person who might want to remind the Giants that he hasn’t forgotten.
Flores did not speak to reporters after the game, per NFL guidelines.
Ultimately, it is up to Dart to recognize where rushers are coming from, be aware of his protection, see if it’s breaking down, and get rid of the football. He took a lot of criticism about that as a rookie when he was hit 146 times by some counts in 12 starts.
But you know what? Dart ultimately got his measure of revenge this game.
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He returned to the game and threw a 15-yard touchdown pass against the Vikings and their defensive coordinator. But even then he seemed to train his ire at the fact he had to have an evaluation.
“As far as the blue tent, I really respect the rules and the thought the NFL has behind keeping players healthy and reviewing things,” Dart said. “But at the same time I’m still puzzled by — just feeling like every time that I get hit I find my way in there, which at times I still try to wrap my head around.”
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