Daniel Jones serves as a huge warning sign for Giants' Jaxson Dart experiment

The New York Giants will officially start Jaxson Dart on Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers, per ESPN's Adam Schefter. That moves veteran Russell Wilson to the bench after his catastrophic meltdown against the Kansas City Chiefs this past weekend.

It's a bit jarring to see Wilson officially benched less than two weeks after throwing for 450 yards (!!) against the Dallas Cowboys, but we've quickly learned that QB performances against Dallas are to be taken with a heavy helping of salt. Russ sandwiched that standout evening (which still ended in a loss) between a couple stinkers and the Giants, at 0-3, are interested in putting off the inevitable.

What could feasibly end up being Wilson's final possession as an NFL quarterback — or at least as the Giants quarterback — will haunt him for a while. Down 22-9 with the clock fading in the fourth quarter, Wilson squandered a first-and-goal opportunity with a few of the worst red zone pass attempts ever caught on video.

Russ was never a permanent or even season-long solution for the Giants. This was known as soon as he signed that contract. Whatever delusions the Giants front office had about what Wilson is were never going to stand the test of time. Dart is an exciting prospect — ideally, he's the future of New York football. But you needn't look further than the Giants' ex, Daniel Jones, to see why fans ought to proceed with caution. Maybe even skepticism.

We can't trust Giants to develop Jaxson Dart after watching Daniel Jones in Indianapolis

Daniel Jones was a national laughing stock with the Giants. He finished his tenure playing on the scout team defense. His contract was viewed as the worst in the NFL. Most Giants fans were happy just to get out of the Danny Dimes experience, even if it meant suffering through a few weeks of Russell Wilson before Jaxson Dart took over.

Lo and behold, Jones' Indianapolis Colts are 3-0 and have punted once — once! — in three weeks. Jones has completed 71.6 percent of his passes for 816 yards, three touchdowns and zero turnovers, with another 55 yards and three touchdowns as a runner. He looks like an MVP candidate.

Indianapolis' schedule has featured a few softballs, but dominant wins over Miami and Cincinnati feel like they proved a point. The Colts also completed a sensational comeback victory over the Broncos and their stout defense in Week 2, so Jones isn't just beating up on the NFL's basement-dwellers.

He will probably come back down to earth eventually, but nothing we've seen from Jones feels like dumb luck. He looks calm, cool and collected in the pocket, scrambling when he needs to and processing the field quickly before the pocket collapses and his life is made difficult. After so many turnover-plagued seasons in East Rutherford, it's a bit jarring to watch Jones operate with such efficiency, like a quarterback is complete control of his environment.

Indianapolis has a great roster around him, which helps. But that's kind of the point? If Jones was always competent — and we saw glimpses of this lofty ceiling in 2022, when Jones won nine games and earned his soon-to-be lamented payday — then how bad was his setup in New York? Yeah, not great.

How can we expect Jaxson Dart to step in and thrive if he's only going to be subjected to the same abuses Jones faced behind that patchwork Giants O-line?

Jaxson Dart's talent can only carry him so far with the Giants

Dart was probably the best non-Cam Ward QB prospect in the draft, depending on your Shedeur Sanders stance. New York clearly thought so. At the end of the day, however, a quarterback is only as good as his surroundings. Only a select few truly great quarterbacks can elevate a team beyond its means, and odds are Dart is not among that group — at least not yet. More worrisome is the fact that it will be extremely difficult to reach that level when he's fighting a constant uphill battle.

Russ is not a good quarterback at this point in his career, but the Giants' pass protection did him zero favors. Dart is an incredible natural talent, with shades of the towering dual-threat presence that Brian Daboll tapped into with Josh Allen in Buffalo. But he also experienced bouts of poor decision-making at Ole Miss. He's a young quarterback who needs a stable environment in which to sharpen his skill set and learn the ins and outs of NFL quarterbacking. The Giants will not provide that environment.

We can expect Dart to face constant duress in New York. He has a few promising playmakers around him, including a genuine top-shelf wideout in Malik Nabers, but it won't matter if he doesn't have time to read the defense and deliver the football before there's a hand in his face or a helmet in his gut.

Dart can scramble and improvise a bit more than Wilson, but the best NFL quarterbacks can execute a clean script from the pocket. Whether or not Dart can do that with an optimal setup is immaterial, because he will need to go above and beyond all reasonable expectations to find immediate success in New York. This feels like the Giants setting Dart down a familar and dark path — the same path that Jones was sent down a few years ago. You can't develop good habits and improve on the margins if you're constantly working against the clock.

Is Dart a better quarterback than Wilson? Probably. But is that enough to make the Giants competitive? Almost certainly not. And is throwing Dart to the wolves this early a positive for his development? Again, almost certainly not.

The Giants should heed Daniel Jones' breakout with the Colts and proceed with extreme caution and patience when it comes to Dart's development. Instead, they're fast-tracking another disappointment, because it's all this coaching staff can think to do as seats get warmer and another season slips into the drain.

An ominous upcoming schedule — Chargers, Saints, Eagles, Broncos, Eagles — certainly won't help Dart's cause.

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