Dan Salomone: Don’t let Schmeelk fool you. Quarterback practice stats are the greatest predictor of success or failure for the season.
Joking aside, the most important position in all of sports is what I will be watching. We don’t need to rehash the offseason moves (if you need a refresher, though, here’s our transaction tacker). Everyone knows who is here by now, and training camp is where the rubber meets the road. Once practice begins on Wednesday, there are just 46 days until the national anthem is being sung before the Giants take on the Commanders, the first of back-to-back divisional games to kick off what combined 2024 percentages say is the toughest schedule in the league.
Not that there was before, but there is no time to waste. The season gets very real on Wednesday, something that 10-time Pro Bowler Russell Wilson knows all about.
“He is able to have a calmness about him with urgency,” offensive pass game coordinator/quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney said on an episode of “The Drive” now streaming. “Even though it’s new to him, you wouldn’t think it’s new just by watching him out there. In the huddle, at the line of scrimmage, on the sideline with the guys, he’s fit right in from that standpoint of being a veteran. I think that helps when your quarterback can handle those things and do that stuff for the rest of the offense.”
If Wilson represents the Giants’ present, Jaxson Dart is a major part of their future. The 25th overall draft pick has now gone through orientation, rookie minicamp, OTAs, and regular minicamp in his development process. You don’t hit quarterbacks in practice, but the intensity will ratchet up when the pads come on in a few days. It will grow from there for him as we approach the preseason slate, which begins 17 days after the first practice of camp.
“I just trust them,” Dart said at minicamp about the Giants’ plan for him. “They’ve had this blueprint and they’ve done it with different quarterbacks and you’ve seen them succeed at the highest level, so I trust them. For me, I’m just trying to be the most coachable player that I can. I want to play well on the offense. I want to be able to manage it and operate it at the highest level. I know that they definitely do have a plan. I’m just trying to take it day by day and I’m not looking for results immediately. I’m a process driven person, so I’m just taking it day by day, rep by rep.”
And we’ll all be taking notes from the sideline at each hot and humid practice in East Rutherford.
