NEW ORLEANS — This is why Giants ownership needed to turn over — no pun intended — to a new regime in the offseason. Rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart now has been thrust into a no-win situation, playing for a lame duck coach, on a bad roster, for a franchise that never gets out of its own way. Sunday’s bumbling 26-14 loss to a bad New Orleans Saints team dropped Giants GM Joe Schoen and head ...

Jaxson Dart of the New York Giants throws a pass during the fourth quarter against the New Orleans Saints in the game at Caesars Superdome on Monday, Oct. 5, 2025, in New Orleans.

Sean Gardner/Getty Images North America/TNS

NEW ORLEANS — This is why Giants ownership needed to turn over — no pun intended — to a new regime in the offseason.

Rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart now has been thrust into a no-win situation, playing for a lame duck coach, on a bad roster, for a franchise that never gets out of its own way.

Sunday’s bumbling 26-14 loss to a bad New Orleans Saints team dropped Giants GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll to an astounding 4-18 record in their last 22 games.

Now Thursday night’s primetime game for the Giants (1-4) against the ornery Philadelphia Eagles (4-1) at MetLife Stadium looms as a potential inflection point. Definitely for Daboll, but also for Schoen and Dart, too.

Daboll’s early break-glass quarterback change from Russell Wilson to Dart at 0-3 might have allowed the coach, team and fan base to briefly exhale after their Week 4 win over the Chargers.

But Sunday’s loss inside Caesars Superdome reinvited questions about whether playing Dart is actually best for the young quarterback or if he’s only in the lineup to try to save jobs with the hope he represents.

The Giants, to be clear, just lost by 12 to a previously winless Saints team that one NFL source pregame called “maybe the worst team in football.”

Schoen’s roster is unimpressive, and although Daboll has said he doesn’t expect Dart to be the savior, that’s exactly the position they are not putting him in, especially with top receiver Malik Nabers (torn ACL) out for the year.

Dart accepted that responsibility postgame on Sunday after committing three turnovers in the loss.

“I am going to work harder,” he said. “For me I just have to keep leading. I told as many guys as I can in the locker room that this one is on me, and I am going to get better. I expect myself to play better in the games and to win them.”

But this loss shouldn’t be all on him, and it’s not. The Giants need better players around him. They need better coaching than the meltdown that was put on display Sunday. They need a locker room that was angrier than the one in New Orleans postgame, where there was plenty of angst but also too much normalizing of unfortunate losses and not nearly enough recognition of how shockingly unacceptable this performance was.

If the Giants had unanimously considered Dart a transcendent talent who was prepared to resurrect their franchise in year one, they would have used the No. 3 overall pick in the draft on him — not waited to trade up for him at No. 25.

Dart needs a more competent operation around him. Otherwise, the Giants risk dragging Dart down into the depths with their franchise, stunting his growth and watching him thrive somewhere else in five years just like Daniel Jones.

This is not to say Dart isn’t capable of being an NFL starter. His consecutive touchdown drives to open Sunday’s game proved he’s mentally and physically capable of making plays at this level.

It’s just, if the ship is sinking, maybe the Giants should consider moving Dart onto a raft and bringing him back to shore for a bit until things cool down.

What would that look like? Maybe it would mean trying Jameis Winston for a game or two.

Maybe it would mean firing Daboll, making Mike Kafka the interim head coach and giving the offensive coordinator half a season to show ownership what this same roster looks like with a different voice at the top.

Daboll undoubtedly would not survive sitting Dart back down after benching Wilson so quickly at 0-3. He has to ride this out and watch his future as the Giants’ head coach live or die with the results.

But realistically, the end of Daboll’s tenure could come as soon as Friday morning if the Eagles blow the Giants out — again — and if the stands are mostly empty in Thursday night’s fourth quarter with the only cheers coming from the fans wearing Kelly green.

Remember: Daboll is the one who steered the Giants’ NFL draft process away from Shedeur Sanders to Dart, and then there was some internal disagreement in the Giants’ building about benching Wilson before Daboll announced he was going to the rookie.

Whatever Schoen says internally to save himself when Daboll gets tossed overboard, however, never forget that the Giants consistently have presented the two as a collaborative, package deal pairing. And while Daboll is the one who is unable to build the Legos, Schoen is the person who didn’t even understand what necessary pieces to put inside the box.

This GM not only cut last year’s NFL Offensive Player of the Year Saquon Barkley and released this year’s Comeback Player of the Year favorite, the Colts’ Jones. He also nuked this season before it started by putting his money on Wilson at QB.

The Giants’ ensuing 0-3 start was predictable to just about everyone outside of the building.

Schoen’s draft classes continue to look worse by the day. The only silver lining is that the Giants basically pick in the top 10 annually because they never win games. So sometimes they fail into an interesting player like Nabers or rookie edge rusher Abdul Carter.

Still, none of the players that the Giants fawn over internally help them win consistently. That’s proof of the bad ecosystem Dart has entered, which should be enough for ownership to recognize that pulling the plug on this entire operation is the only sensible move.

No matter that they don’t want to heap a new offensive system on Dart in his second pro season. Maintaining the status quo, as the Giants did coming off their 3-14 season in 2024, is just an admission that this franchise accepts losing.

A new GM, of course, might decide to draft a new quarterback, since Dart wouldn’t be his guy. And the Giants no doubt will be picking in the top 10 again next April. But who is to say how stable Dart’s position would be here if Daboll were fired and Schoen stayed, anyway?

Even if Dart received a runway through 2026, firing Daboll and keeping Schoen would create a situation identical to the Dave Gettleman-Joe Judge regime: The Giants would be clinging to a bad GM, marrying him with a new coach and then firing everyone together if that experiment didn’t work out.

All while the young quarterback wallowed and waited to escape.

Left tackle Andrew Thomas said postgame Sunday that the players have Dart’s back.

“We’ll just encourage him to keep being himself,” Thomas said. “He’s back there for a reason. He’s a talented player. He gives us an edge with his mobility. So we’ll continue to rally around him.”

But with wide receiver Darius Slayton (hamstring) banged up coming out of Sunday’s loss in New Orleans, and with an angry Eagles team coming off a brutal home defeat to the Denver Broncos, Thursday has the potential to bring the house down on the 101st season of this Giants franchise — and on Dart in the process.

Schoen and Daboll are 1-6-0 all-time against the Eagles as the Giants’ GM and coach, getting outscored 199-113 in those seven games. Whatever the Giants need to do to protect Dart, they need to do it soon.

If it’s not too late already.

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