Looking back on it, Giants head coach John Harbaugh thinks Jaxson Dart’s “history” of visits to the medical tent as a rookie might have had something to do with Dart being summoned Saturday to the tent in the second quarter of the afternoon’s 13-10 preseason loss to the Vikings.
Dart took a big hit from safety Jay Ward after running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. failed to locate Ward on what should have been an automatic blitz pickup.
Dart was slammed to the turf and stayed down for a few seconds.
Afterward, he said he was “puzzled’’ that he had to get checked out for a possible concussion.
“I’m sure it’s frustrating,’’ Harbaugh said Sunday afternoon. “I’m not going to be critical of the league or whoever’s doing that upstairs. They do their job; they want to protect their players. I’m sure history or whatever they might remember, maybe that comes into play. I don’t know in a similar situation if another quarterback would have been called into the tent or not. There’s no way for us to know that.’’
This was certainly not a case of Dart being reckless with his body or taking unnecessary risks.
It was a case of Tracy whiffing on his assignment and getting his quarterback mauled.
“There’s no way he should have been hit there,’’ Harbaugh said. “I mean, it just shouldn’t have happened. That was a basic protection. Should have been protected and we expect in that situation to be protected in the future. I mean, it’s not like [Dart’s] going to be never hit, never tackled, never sacked. But it shouldn’t have been in that one, and it shouldn’t have been that easy to get to him.’’
It looks as if the Giants will need to add a running back, as Dante “Turbo’’ Miller came out of the game with a soft tissue/groin injury. At present, there are only six running backs on the roster. … The Giants, trailing by three points, had an opportunity to send rookie Dominic Zvada out to attempt a 62-yard field goal with 2:29 remaining. After conferring with special teams coordinator Chris Horton, Harbaugh deemed the kick into the wind to be too far to attempt. “We wanted to kick it; I promise you, we wanted to get him out there to try one,’’ Harbaugh said. “Maybe he would have knocked it through.’’ Harbaugh was hoping his defense could make a stop to get the ball back for the offense, but the Vikings picked up two first downs to run out the clock.
Harbaugh lost a replay challenge early in the first quarter, contesting a reception by Jordan Addison that picked up 8 yards and a first down.
In the headset suggesting the challenge was Ty Siam, the director of Football Data & Innovation, who held that role previously on Brian Daboll’s staff.
“He did a good job,’’ Harbaugh said. “I was happy with it. I thought the challenge was the right challenge. The ball moved, his hands were on the side, it hit the ground, the ball moved out of his control. They didn’t turn it over probably because of the shadowing on the replay, you couldn’t probably see it that clearly. They looked at it for a long time. Good challenge.’’
