Abdul Carter's Giants debut was maybe even more impressive than Jaxson Dart

New York Giants fans are positively buzzing after just one half of preseason football against the Buffalo Bills. Most of that enthusiasm surrounds rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart, and it's not hard to see why: The first-rounder out of Ole Miss looked awfully impressive in his first few series of live action, connecting with Lil'Jordan Humphrey on a beautiful deep ball for a touchdown while also showing off his athleticism on several scrambles.

Dart led three scoring drives in the first half alone, finishing 12-of-19 for 154 yards and a score while adding 24 yards on the ground. For a fan base that's been starved for any sort of optimism at the QB position since Eli Manning retired, it was like stumbling on an oasis in the desert. And yet it might not even have been the most impressive debut by a Giants first rounder on Saturday — because while Dart is the future, Abdul Carter looks ready to be a star right now.

Carter wasn't on the field long for New York; in fact, he saw just two series and three pash-rush snaps. But that was all he needed to flash the jaw-dropping potential that made him the No. 3 overall pick in April's draft: All three of those snaps resulted in pressures, and two of them came against Bills All-Pro tackle Dion Dawkins.

Abdul Carter looked every bit like a future star in Giants debut

I mean, just look at the suddenness with which Carter moves, and how flat-footed he catches an excellent lineman in Dawkins when he gets him on an island.

That is rare, rare stuff, and he's already putting it on one of the best in the sport just months after leaving college. Dart is going to grab the headlines after Saturday's game, because that's just the way it goes when you play quarterback (especially in New York). But while he was undoubtedly impressive, plenty of caveats abound: It was just one game in early August, with the playbooks on both sides greatly simplified, and it came largely against Bills backups. Some of the throws and running ability he made were undoubtedly impressive, and you can immediately see why the Giants thought Dart's skill set was worthy of a first round pick. But we have a long way to go before we can be confident in him as an above-average starting QB in the league.

Carter, however, requires no such qualifiers. He was going one-on-one against a star in Dawkins, and the stuff he showed on Saturday — the ability to get past the man in front of him — translates much more cleanly to what he'll be asked to do during the regular season than what was asked of Dart. He has the power, speed, explosiveness and technical prowess that you simply can't teach, and while he'll have to beef up a bit to defend the run and learn how to counter the ways linemen will inevitably adjust to him, there's no reason why he can't replicate this moving forward. And that should make an already-promising Giants defense even scarier.