Kansas City may not be the dynastic and dominant team it once was, and it did in fact come into this game with the same 0-2 record as the Giants. But the quarterback who turned 30 this past week still is one of the most dangerous players in the league, and he showed it on several occasions during Kansas City’s 22-9 victory at MetLife Stadium on Sunday night.
Patrick Mahomes was 22-for-37 for 224 yards and a touchdown. And while the statistics were fairly good, the entirety of the performance is what exuded his greatness.
Two of the most remarkable plays didn’t even show up in Mahomes’ boxscore.
In the second quarter, he threw a backward pass for Isiah Pacheco that bounced around as a live ball. Safety Dane Belton had a chance to recover it for the Giants but didn’t. Linebacker Bobby Okereke had the ball in his hands, but Mahomes, hustling after the play, was able to strip it away from Okereke and recover it himself.
At a point when the score was tied at 6, the Giants should have had the ball inside the Kansas City 10. Instead, Kansas City lived to punt.
Later in the quarter, Mahomes outran Darius Alexander and Abdul Carter and sprinted all the way to the Giants’ sideline before pulling up and launching a deep desperation pass. It wasn’t caught, but it would have been better for the Giants if it had been, because Kansas City had no timeouts. Rather, cornerback Dru Phillips was flagged for pass interference, which stopped the clock with seven seconds left and put the ball at the 11. Two plays later, Kansas City kicked a field goal for a 9-6 lead.
Witnessing all of it was Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart.
“I watched a lot of film on him this week for my scout team reps, obviously seeing him be able to make crazy plays and whatnot, and then to be able to see him on the field, he’s a really good player,” he said of his first in-person glimpse of Mahomes. “Growing up, there are certain guys that you kind of watch a lot, and he was one of those for me when I was growing up, so it was cool to see it live.”
Mahomes remains the ideal for the “letting a rookie quarterback ripen on the bench” rather than rushing him into action.
“You look at the NFL and the guy we just played, he didn’t play as a rookie,” Giants receiver Darius Slayton said after the game. “Lamar [Jackson] didn’t play as a rookie until late. So when you talk about Jaxson Dart, like, I want Jaxson Dart to end up like that guy. Him having some time to wait and learn is probably not a bad thing.”
Dart, though, objects to that being the only way to do things.
“There are so many guys who have had different successes and not everyone’s experience is the same,” he said. “I watched guys like C.J. [Stroud] and Jayden [Daniels], guys I have trained with since I was in high school, and they stepped in and lit it up immediately. Then Bryce [Young] for example, he was thrown in the fire but I think he’s still an elite player . . . You can’t just compare situations like that.”
Who knows if Dart eventually will become the Giants’ version of Mahomes.
He got a glimpse of the real thing on Sunday night, and while the result stung, it left Dart and the Giants and their fans hoping even more that they someday can have that type of quarterback for their own.
Wilson (18-for-32, 160 yards, two interceptions) was unable to keep any momentum he mustered last week in his breakout game in Dallas. It led to the Giants fans making it pretty clear who they think should be playing quarterback.
Whenever Dart came into the game — and he did so for three plays — they cheered.
Whenever he left the game and Wilson returned, they booed.
The other players either said they didn’t hear those calls for the kid to get a longer look or brushed it off.
“In my time here, I have heard a lot of people get booed, so it’s nothing new to me,” Slayton said. “It doesn’t really mean anything. I understand the fans’ perspective. Fans want what they want.”
Added linebacker Brian Burns: “Fans will be fans . . . Everybody loved Russ when he threw that bomb to Malik [Nabers] to win the game [which the Giants actually lost last week in Dallas], but it’s week by week, and they can flip on you.”
We still haven’t seen what Dart can do, but Wilson’s play in this game did little to quell the mounting surge of desire outside the organization — and the growing itches inside it — to make a change and hand the franchise over to the rookie.
“I like being on the field,” Dart said.
He’s not the only one who likes it when he’s there.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday’s Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
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