Tom Rock

5 days ago | newsday.com | Tom Rock

Jaxson Dart made his much-anticipated on-field debut with the Giants at Friday’s rookie minicamp practice. His ascension as the team’s next leader, perhaps an even more significant coronation, came the night before. After the official first meetings wrapped Thursday evening, Dart gathered as many offensive players as he could find for an impromptu prep talk. “We all got together and made sure we went through the script,” Dart said of discussing the plays that would be run the next day.

2 weeks ago | newsday.com | Tom Rock

For the past two years the Jets worked under the belief that bringing one person into the building could change the attitude of everyone else inside of it. They banked on the idea that one future Hall of Fame quarterback’s presence alone would raise expectations, improve the team, and rectify the organizational flaws that have kept them from reaching the playoffs since 2010. Obviously that did not work.

2 weeks ago | newsday.com | Tom Rock

So much attention is rightfully paid to quarterbacks. It’s warranted, of course. Teams can’t win without getting elite play from the position. The Giants? They needed to address that spot big time this offseason. Trading up for Jaxson Dart in the first round, they hope, accomplished that task. But there were plenty of other issues facing the Giants. Way back in January when team president and CEO John Mara spoke at the end of the season he was asked about those holes.

2 weeks ago | newsday.com | Tom Rock

There were a lot of reasons for the Giants to hire Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll back in January 2022. They were supposed to bring stability, communication and new thinking to an organization that for way too long hadn’t had any of those things. But the biggest item on their to-do list was to identify, draft and develop a young quarterback the way they had done with Josh Allen in Buffalo. On Friday, they woke up able to move forward on that mandate for the first time in their tenures with the team.

2 weeks ago | newsday.com | Tom Rock

There are some draft dates that have immediately and explicitly changed the course of the Giants’ franchise for the better. On April 28, 1981, the team used the second overall pick to select Lawrence Taylor. It yielded two Super Bowl titles. On April 24, 2004, they engineered a trade for Eli Manning. Two more Super Bowls. So where will April 24, 2025, stand in history?