Giants Rookie Jaxson Dart Facing Likely Season-Ending Knee Injury

New York Giants rookie-turned-starter Jaxson Dart is facing a likely season-ending knee injury after further testing on Tuesday showed more extensive damage than the team initially believed, coach John Harbaugh said, throwing the Giants' offense back onto veteran Jameis Winston barely two weeks into the season.

Dart went down on the Giants' opening series of Monday night's 28-6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium, taken down by two Rams defenders after completing 3 of 5 passes for 20 yards. He walked off the field under his own power and was initially diagnosed with a sprained MCL, but a Tuesday MRI revealed the injury is worse than first feared, and the team is preparing for the possibility that Dart will not return this season.

The numbers

In his rookie 2025 season, Dart started 12 of 14 games and threw for 2,272 yards and 15 touchdowns against five interceptions while completing 63.7 percent of his passes, adding 487 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns on 86 carries — figures that ranked among the top three at his position in both rushing yards and rushing scores. This season he had played in two games, throwing for 250 yards and three touchdowns, and opened Week 1 by becoming the first quarterback in NFL history to post 3-plus passing touchdowns, 50-plus rushing yards and a passer rating above 130 in the same game.

Winston, who replaced Dart on Monday, finished 11 of 27 for 111 yards with an interception and was sacked twice as the Rams' defense teed off on New York's offensive line. On the other side, Los Angeles quarterback Matthew Stafford threw for 327 yards and four touchdowns on 22-of-31 passing, and receiver Davante Adams caught eight of 10 targets for 195 yards and two scores — the most receiving yards by any player in the league this season. The loss dropped the Giants to 1-1 heading into a Week 3 home game against the winless Tennessee Titans.

How the Giants got here

The injury lands amid a broader rebuild in East Rutherford. New York fired Brian Daboll in November 2025 after a 2-8 start to a season that finished 4-13, then hired Harbaugh, the former Baltimore Ravens coach and Super Bowl winner, to a five-year deal in January. Dart, the 25th overall pick in the 2025 draft out of Ole Miss, took the starting job from Russell Wilson four games into his rookie season and held it the rest of the way, and he was widely viewed entering 2026 as a foundational piece of the rebuild regardless of who was coaching him.

The Giants had already moved to shore up their quarterback depth before Monday's game. On September 7, New York signed Winston to a two-year contract extension through 2028, a deal the team framed as retaining one of the league's most experienced backups rather than as a hedge against Dart's health. That extension now positions Winston, a 12-year veteran who has also played for Tampa Bay, New Orleans and Cleveland, as New York's presumptive starter for the foreseeable future.

Who is affected

The most immediate burden falls on Winston and an offense that struggled badly in its first extended look without Dart. Receiver Malik Nabers, who briefly left Monday's game after his shoulder popped out on a contested catch before returning, is now the primary weapon Winston will lean on. The Giants' depth chart behind Winston is thin: third-year pro Jake Haener remains on the practice squad as the only other quarterback in the building with regular-season experience. Dart's injury was not the only one New York absorbed Monday night — left tackle Andrew Thomas left the game's final possession with a groin issue and pass rusher Brian Burns needed help off the field with what he later described as a low-ankle sprain, leaving Harbaugh to manage a battered roster on both sides of the ball heading into the week. A season-long absence for Dart would also reshape New York's rebuilding timeline under Harbaugh, who inherited a roster built in part around the rookie's dual-threat skill set.

Reaction

Nabers, addressing reporters after the loss, called for the team to close ranks around its new starter.

"We're going to continue to practice hard, get out there, be more intentional about what we've got to do, what we've got to accomplish. Rally around Jameis."

Harbaugh, in postgame comments and again at his Tuesday press conference, declined to characterize the injury as season-ending but acknowledged the severity. "The fact that it's not that outcome that you're talking about, the devastating outcome, is really good news," he said Monday night, before telling reporters Tuesday that "evaluations are ongoing" and that "we haven't gotten any final decisions yet." Winston, who threw for just 111 yards in relief, said his focus on the sideline was on his teammate rather than his own performance: "Just praying, lifting him up on the sideline, hoping that everything will be fine." Multiple outlets, including CBS Sports, reported that Dart was hurt on a deep-ball attempt when hit by Rams defenders Josaiah Stewart and Byron Young, and that season-ending surgery remains among the possibilities as the Giants and Dart's medical team weigh a course of treatment.

What happens next

The Giants have not placed Dart on injured reserve as of Wednesday morning, and Harbaugh has said no announcement will come until doctors and the team settle on a treatment plan, which could still include season-ending surgery. Winston is expected to start Sunday against the 0-2 Titans, who are led by their own former No. 1 overall pick, Cam Ward, now in his second season. Beyond this weekend, the Giants must decide whether to add quarterback depth behind Winston and Haener before the trade deadline, and whether any in-season addition would be a stopgap or a longer-term answer if Dart's recovery timeline stretches into 2027. New York's next three opponents — the Titans, the Arizona Cardinals and the Washington Commanders — are a comparatively soft stretch on paper, giving Winston a window to stabilize the offense before divisional games against Philadelphia and Dallas resume in earnest. For now, though, New York's season, and the pace of Harbaugh's rebuild, rests on a 32-year-old journeyman who was extended through 2028 as an insurance policy rather than as the plan.