The Giants made a move for their future quarterback, trading back into the first round for Jaxson Dart at No. 25 overall.
Let's examine Dart's 2025 fantasy football outlook and Dynasty value.
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Jaxson Dart 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook
Dart improved his completion rate and yards per pass attempt every season in college, ending his career at Ole Miss with a 69.3% completion rate (85th percentile), 10.8 yards per attempt (97th percentile), and 4.8 touchdowns for every interception (81st percentile).
Dart led this draft class in yards per pass attempt under pressure (10.2 Y/A) and with a clean pocket (10.9 Y/A).
Dart is slightly younger than Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders and is more battle-tested, starting in the SEC over the past three seasons.
The questions for Dart stem from that as well.
He played with better surrounding talent, while several quarterbacks have posted gaudy collegiate production under Lane Kiffin.
The interesting part for Dart compared to his predecessor, Matt Corral, is that while Corral had inflated efficiency via the quick game, Dart pushed the rock downfield and looked to “big game hunt” via explosive passing.
Dart had the highest depth of target for any passer in this draft class (11.9 yards downfield).
Only 55.4% of his throws were shorter than 10 yards downfield, the lowest rate in this class.
22.1% of his throws were 20 yards or further downfield, the highest rate in the class by a significant margin (second place was 17.6%).
Dart was strong on his downfield attempts, posting a class-high 70.9% on-target rate on his throws 10 yards or further.
According to Pro Football Focus, the company's metric for successful passes thrown downfield into tighter windows, he led this draft class with a 7.1% big-time throw rate.
Dart led this class with 11.9 yards per pass attempt against the blitz.
Dart’s 83.7% on-target rate in the red zone was second in the class, while he only took one sack on 50 red zone dropbacks with 0 interceptions.
The continued progression of Dart is an encouraging aspect of his entering the league. At the same time, his system attachment will raise the most significant questions if he is in a tougher offensive environment at the start of his NFL career.
Only 26.6% of his passes were made without using play-action, motion, or screens, the fourth-lowest rate in this class.
53.2% of his dropbacks came with play-action, the highest rate of this class.
Those components are cheat codes in the NFL, and we want our quarterbacks to use them at a high rate like Dart did in college, so hopefully Brian Daboll and the Giants incorporate those.
A positive is that he averaged 10.7 Y/A on his traditional dropbacks without any of those additions.
Still, the current NFL passing game, dictated by how NFL pass defenses are playing, is structured around the quick passing game, while Dart’s collegiate profile is built on the opposite.
That is what makes his translation into the NFL tricky to handle.
The history of quarterbacks taken in this portion of the draft is boom-or-bust.
Since the NFL expanded to 32 teams in 2002, 13 quarterbacks have been selected at pick No. 20 or later in the first round:
- Kenny Pickett in 2022
- Jordan Love in 2020
- Lamar Jackson in 2018
- Paxton Lynch in 2016
- Johnny Manziel in 2014
- Teddy Bridgewater in 2014
- Brandon Weeden in 2012
- Tim Tebow in 2010
- Brady Quinn 2006
- Aaron Rodgers in 2005
- Jason Campbell in 2005
- JP Losman in 2004
- Rex Grossman in 2003
Regardless of where Dart falls on that spectrum, this was a (bad pun intended) dart the Giants felt forced to make.
The Giants once again received bottom-of-the-barrel quarterback play in 2024.
Their quarterbacks collectively finished 31st in the NFL in EPA per dropback (-0.11).
They completed 61.9% of their throws (29th) for 6.0 yards per pass attempt (31st).
They had a league-low 2.5% touchdown rate.
They added both Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston to their roster for equally guaranteed money to what Daniel Jones received on the open market.
We believe Wilson will open the year as the starting quarterback, but how long can he keep Dart off the field, especially now that the Giants made this move to go back up for him?
Wilson was 23rd in EPA per dropback last season (0.00) and 28th in success rate (41%).
Seeing Dart’s fit behind this offensive line as another component will be interesting.
The Giants received another season of subpar play up front.
The team ended the season ranking 26th in ESPN’s pass block win rate (56%).
At Pro Football Focus, they ranked 28th in pass blocking grade.
New York threw a lot at the position in free agency last offseason to revamp this line.
Dart is another passer here who will rely on scrambling over designed rushing output in the NFL, but he can get out of trouble and showed a more significant propensity to run than Ward and Sanders did in college.
Dart has a career rushing production score in the 72nd percentile.
He scrambled on 9.5% of his dropbacks, the second highest rate in this draft class.
When pressured, Dart scrambled on 19.2% of his dropbacks (also second)
When Dart does get to play, he comes with an attachment to a WR1.
The Giants got it right with Malik Nabers last season.
Selected with the No. 6 pick, Nabers caught 109 passes for 1,204 yards and 7 touchdowns over 15 games as a rookie.
New York understood the assignment in featuring Nabers.
Nabers commanded a robust 37% of the team targets on the field.
He was targeted on 30.9% of his routes, second in the NFL as a rookie.
He led the league with 32.9% of the team's targets on early downs.
Regardless of how you feel about Dart and Wilson, the bar is low for those passers to provide Nabers with an increased rate of quality targets.
TL;DR Fantasy Impact Notes
- 2nd Round Rookie pick in 1QB formats, mid-to-late first round in 2QB formats
- In-season pickup in 2025 seasonal formats