If New York Giants fans were hoping to see quarterback Jaxson Dart avoid the sophomore slump, they may be disappointed based on his new offensive coordinator's assessment of practices. Matt Nagy, who led the Chicago Bears and Kansas City Chiefs' attack, was not impressed with the 2025 first-round pick at training camp.
"Average practice. Below average," Nagy told reporters bluntly on Tuesday. "Not good enough." He explained that Dart was bound to have ups and downs as the 23-year-old learns the new system. Nagy's approach is apparently to throw as many different looks on the field as possible, study the tape and determine what works and what doesn't.
"Again, we're halfway through camp right now. We have still two and a half weeks. We're halfway through our run install and halfway through our pass install"
— Giants Nation Show (@GiantsNationPod) August 12, 2026
Giants OC Matt Nagy on building out an offensive scheme pic.twitter.com/dtAvBbVZ3u
"Again, we're halfway through camp right now. We have still two and a half weeks. We're halfway through our run install and halfway through our pass install," he continued.
Bold strategy, Nagy. Let's see if it works out (it won't).
Giants fans are about to learn painful lesson with Matt Nagy leading offense
Despite earning NFL Coach of the Year honors in 2018 for leading Mitch Trubisky to the playoffs (truly an incredible feat considering how the rest of the former first-round pick's career went), Nagy doesn't have a whole lot on his resume to inspire confidence for Giants fans. He's a run-first kind of guy, which yielded some success with guys like Trubisky and Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City, but his truest sample was with Justin Fields in 2021.
As a rookie, Fields threw for just 1,870 yards and seven touchdowns in 12 appearances. He was picked off 10 times and fumbled another four instances while rushing for 420 yards and a pair of scores. Fields, of course, was utilized as a dual-threat quarterback just as Dart was drafted to be.
One can only hope Nagy's poor assessment of Dart and the offense to date is because he learned his lessons in failing to get Trubisky and Fields to consistently play at their highest potential. Hope doesn't win football games.
Reports from Giants camp indicated the offense struggled to execute in red zone drills. That's the exact part of the field Nagy-led offenses have failed to capitalize in. Last year, Dart scored nine rushing touchdowns, most from inside the 20-yard line. Multiple sportsbooks currently have his line at a shocking 5.5 rushing touchdowns for the 2026-27 season. That's not a prediction that a newly healthy Cam Skattebo at running back is going to snipe more of those scores; that's the Matt Nagy effect.
New York may be leaning on its newly-revamped defense to carry it out of the four-win basement it's sat in for the last two years. Giants fans are probably in for a rude awakening from the rosy projections of a playoff berth under the new coaching regime.
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