Jaxson Dart's Year 2 Leap: Why the Giants QB Is a Sneaky Fantasy Bet

The Giants have been chasing Eli Manning's replacement since he walked out the door, running through Daniel Jones, Tommy DeVito and even Russell Wilson before landing on Jaxson Dart. The Saints ran a parallel search after Drew Brees, cycling through Teddy Bridgewater, Jameis Winston, Derek Carr and Spencer Rattler before turning to Tyler Shough. Both teams think they finally found the answer — and the rookie tape suggests they might be right.

Dart's line reads modest at a glance: 2,272 passing yards, 15 touchdowns and just five interceptions on 339 attempts across 12 starts, good for a 91.7 passer rating. But the number our model cares about most is the one on the ground — 487 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns across 14 games. That's a fantasy floor most rookie quarterbacks don't offer, and he posted it even after losing Malik Nabers for the year in his first NFL start.

Historically, quarterbacks don't break out because they hit 4,000 yards as rookies. They break out because they already limit mistakes and stay efficient, and the production catches up in Year 2. Dart checks those boxes. By November, Brian Daboll stopped calling games to protect him and started calling them like he expected NFL throws — and Dart mostly delivered.

The Comps Point Up

The closest rookie profiles to Dart are encouraging. Bo Nix — who finished 2025 with 3,931 passing yards, 25 touchdowns and 299 PPR points, ranking QB11 in our model — is the statistical match. More efficient versions of that same path include Russell Wilson and Marcus Mariota. The pattern is what matters: quarterbacks who looked like Dart as rookies tended to build, not plateau.

Shough is the quieter story but not a throwaway one. He completed 67.6% of his passes, averaged 7.3 yards per attempt and posted a 91.3 passer rating over nine starts for a Saints offense that never found an identity. He returns alongside his second-year coach, so there's no new playbook to learn. His comps — Carr, Andy Dalton, Bridgewater — aren't superstars, but they're stable multi-year starters. For a franchise that just churned through Carr, Rattler and Jake Haener, stability alone would be a win.

For fantasy, the two split cleanly. Dart is the target: he's our QB16 (#36 overall) heading into 2026, which undersells a passer with a genuine rushing profile — buy him as your QB2 or a late-round upside swing before the price corrects. Shough stays on the watch list as a bye-week streamer until New Orleans proves it can build something around him. Bet on the ceiling; wait on the floor.