Jaxson Dart wants you to know something: this is real football. It’s not soccer or flag. It’s tackle football, the kind where quarterbacks go airborne. After taking the latest in a growing compilation of bone-crushing hits, Dart brushed himself off and delivered a post-game sermon on toughness. “We’re not playing soccer,” he said. “You’re going to get hit. Things happen.”
Yet these “things” continue to happen to Dart at an alarming rate. In his eight NFL starts, he has absorbed as many unnecessary hits as any rookie quarterback in recent memory. On Monday night, Dart took another heavy hit near the sideline in the first quarter of the Giants’ 33-15 loss to the Patriots. Dart scrambled out of the pocket on second-and-13 and ran for a first down. As he approached the sideline, Dart could have stepped out and gained fewer yards while still moving the chains. Instead, he braced, lowered his shoulder and was sent soaring through the air by Patriots linebacker Christian Elliss.
