it only took the Giants a few weeks (and a $21 million contract, ouch) to figure out what some of us have been saying for years. Russell Wilson is not a quality NFL starting quarterback anymore. Lighting up Dallas doesn't change anything. Jaxson Dart will start in Week 4.
It's the occasional big game, and credible stats at times, that has fooled the Broncos, Steelers and now Giants to bring in Wilson to start. That's it for him now, surely? Maybe some idiot owner will pop in a tape of Wilson throwing for 450 at Dallas and say, He's the guy to lead our team!
But the negative plays (some of which don't even show up in the box score, like last week where Wilson threw the ball away on fourth down rather than risking an interception by jamming it into tight coverage) are just too frequent. The guy is painful to watch play football.
It's the negative plays that are the issue. He's averaged exactly 3 sacks per game in each of the last two seasons, pretty much in line with his career averages. While in the past it was due to his scrambling around extending plays, now it's more due to him not being able to elude pass rushers.
And with respect to his one big game against Dallas (missing DaRon Bland, a liability that showed up in a career game for Caleb Williams on Sunday), did the Giants look at the bulk of Wilson's season in Pittsburgh?
Wilson replaced Justin Fields in Week 7 last year, and won six of his first seven games as a starter. The highlight was a 414-yard, 3-TD game at Cincinnati, which we should probably assign an asterisk to because everyone was lighting up the Bengals defense last season. But check out his last five games of the season after that Bengals game, and his three starts this year.
| RUSSELL WILSON, LAST EIGHT GAMES | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opp | Result | Com | Att | Yds | TD | Int | Sk |
| Cle. | W, 27-14 | 15 | 26 | 158 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| at Phi. | L, 13-27 | 14 | 22 | 128 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| at Bal. | L, 17-34 | 22 | 33 | 217 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| K.C. | L, 10-29 | 23 | 37 | 205 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Cin. | L, 17-19 | 17 | 31 | 148 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| at Was. | L, 21-6 | 17 | 37 | 168 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| at Dal. | L, 40-37 | 30 | 41 | 450 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| K.C. | L, 22-9 | 18 | 32 | 160 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
In those eight games, Wilson threw a total of 9 touchdowns while taking his usual 3 sacks per week. (Someone will come along and blame the line, but a lot of Wilson's sacks are on him.) He threw for even 220 passing yards in one of those games (at Dallas). He lost the last seven of them.
Moving on to Dart. The Giants host the Chargers this week, which is a tough matchup. But there were some plays available for Denver last week against the L.A. secondary, where Bo Nix barely overthrew his receivers. And Dart is the runner that Wilson used to be, maybe even more so. He ran for at least 45 yards in each of his last four starts at Mississippi, and 11 touchdowns in his last two seasons. No question he'll be doing lots of that for the Giants (who will hopefully go with Jameis Winston as the backup, since it would be more fun than seeing Wilson play).
I think Dart is worth picking up in fantasy leagues. Just to see how things go, and if he does run a ton. I expect he'll struggle, including probably this week. But at least there's some down-the-road upside. With Wilson, it's all in the past.
--Andy Richardson