Giants have their QB in Jaxson Dart, but 49ers loss makes it clear: They have little else
Posted November 3, 2025
The Giants finally have their quarterback in Jaxson Dart.
That much is clear at this point in Dart’s rookie year.
But so is this: They don’t have much else.
Not a capable defense. Not enough weapons around Dart, especially with Malik Nabers and Cam Skattebo out for the season. And not the sort of high-level help Dart needs from his coach and general manager.
Dart played well again on Sunday versus the 49ers. But the Giants also lost again — their third straight defeat — as they fell 34-24 and dropped to 2-7, including 2-4 with Dart as their starter.
Dart put together another legit stat line: 24-of-33 passing, 191 yards, two touchdowns and a 107.0 rating, with 56 rushing yards and a score. (If not for brutal drops, those numbers would’ve been better.)
It didn’t matter, as the Giants dropped to 5-21 since the beginning of last season under the regime of coach Brian Daboll and GM Joe Schoen, including 3-18 in their past 21 games.
So what now?
In the short term, the Giants could deal for a high-profile wide receiver like Jaylen Waddle before Tuesday’s trade deadline — a move that might help Dart this year and in 2026. But after that, co-owner John Mara has a decision to make on Daboll and Schoen, especially if this losing continues.
Dart flashing his potential (and then some) through six starts could bode well for Daboll, though at some point, he needs to actually win games. On the other hand, Dart’s presence makes this job quite attractive if Daboll gets canned. The likely long-term quarterback answer is already in place.
As for Waddle, he won’t come cheap. But the Dolphins firing general manager Chris Grier this week at least leaves open the possibility for a trade.
Still, Waddle alone won’t fix the Giants’ wide-ranging mess. That became clearer than ever Sunday, with eight games left in Dart’s first season.
Dart found himself down 20-7 midway through the third quarter after the 49ers answered the Giants’ opening-drive touchdown with 20 straight points. Then Dart and Co. had first-and-goal at the 49ers’ 9, but settled for a field goal with 6:42 left in the quarter.
So the Giants entered the fourth quarter down 20-10, needing another resilient Dart performance at MetLife Stadium.
The climb got tougher for Dart, as the 49ers opened the fourth quarter with a 76-yard touchdown drive extending their lead to 27-10 with 11:35 left. At that point, they had 316 yards (5.7 per play), with 21 first downs.
The Giants, who had mostly performed well at home this season, badly needed a win Sunday.
While Dart is 0-3 on the road and had lost back-to-back deflating games (in Denver and Philadelphia), he was 2-0 at MetLife Stadium, with thrilling upset victories over the Chargers and Eagles.
As the Giants determine down the stretch whether they want to keep Daboll and Schoen for 2026, the coach on Sunday worked his 60th regular-season game in that role.
Heading into Sunday, Daboll’s .347 winning percentage (20-38-1) ranked fourth worst in franchise history, just behind the two coaches who preceded him — Joe Judge (.303) and Pat Shurmur (.281).
Losers of 10 straight away from home (including 0-5 this season), the Giants fell in Philadelphia last week, tying their longest ever road losing streak. (They also accomplished that brutal feat from 1978-79.)
They got a mixed pregame welcome Sunday, as they returned home for the first time since that Thursday night win against the Eagles — and faced the 5-3 49ers without Skattebo, who suffered a devastating ankle injury in Philadelphia.
In 1978, amid another terrible stretch, they saw an airplane protest banner fly before one of their home games.
Angry fans revived that act twice late last season — and again on Sunday, with a banner urging Mara to “clean house.” A second banner Sunday morning supported Mara, who is battling cancer, though the fan who commissioned it also wants Daboll and Schoen canned.
Giants fans have to be wondering when their team will finally secure its third win of the season. Last year, it didn’t happen until after a 2-13 start. In 2023, it followed 2-8. From 2017-21, the Giants opened 2-13, 2-7, 2-11, 2-7 and 2-6 before their third win.
So this was familiar territory for a beaten-down franchise. And this season, yet again, that third win remains elusive.
Here are our other takeaways from Sunday’s game:
• Wilting defense late:
Dart cut the 49ers’ lead to 27-17 by running for a 6-yard touchdown with 7:52 left in the game. Good stuff there.
Not so much here: The Giants’ defense absolutely folded on the next drive. The 49ers drove 60 yards for a touchdown to clinch the win. They needed just six plays and 3:39 to get that score, which put them up 34-17 with 4:13 remaining. That boosted them to 6 yards per play on the day — an atrocious showing by the Giants’ defense.
• Sluggish defense early: The 49ers scored 17 straight points to close the first half after going down 7-0 on the game’s opening drive. They got back-to-back touchdowns on their first two possessions.
Mac Jones — the 49ers’ No. 2 quarterback — sliced up the Giants’ defense in the first half. He completed all 14 of his passes for 143 yards, two touchdowns and a 148.8 rating. He finished by completing 19 of 24 passes for 235 yards and those two touchdowns.
With a depleted secondary (no Jevon Holland, Cor’Dale Flott or Paulson Adebo), defensive coordinator Shane Bowen’s group was again a mess early on, after getting torched by the Eagles’ rushing attack last week and collapsing in Denver two weeks ago.
• Huge missed opportunity: A strip sack (finally, a good defensive play) handed the Giants the ball, down 17-7, at the 49ers’ 27 with 33 seconds left in the first half. Then the Giants advanced zero yards on three plays — and Graham Gano missed a 45-yard field goal. Unsurprisingly (and deservedly so), the Giants were loudly booed off the field at halftime.
Dart entered Sunday as the only quarterback in the Super Bowl era with eight-plus passing touchdowns, four-plus rushing scores and fewer than five turnovers in his first five career starts.
'Golden Bachelor' Gerry Turner Reveals Details of His Fiancée's Eiffel Tower-Inspired Engagement Ring, Magic Trick Proposal
Gerry Turner made sure his proposal to Lana Sutton was magical.
On the Tuesday, Oct. 28 episode of the
Bachelor Happy Hour: Golden Hour podcast, the newly engaged couple revealed details about how they took their relationship to the next level.
The Golden Bachelor said he “had a basic idea” of what he and Sutton wanted when they went to their jeweler, but it was their love for travel that inspired the design for her diamond.
“We went to London and Paris, and I saw the Eiffel Tower. And it was spectacular that night. We woke up, you know, put those shades up, and there it was sparkling in front of us,” he said of their summer vacation together.
Turner shared photos of their Euro trip in a couple of Instagram carousels, detailing the U.K. portion in a July 7 post followed by a July 10 Paris recap.
During the podcast, he said after getting back and speaking with the jeweler again, he had one request: “I want the side of Lana's engagement ring to look like the Eiffel Tower.”
“I sat down with him. I said, ‘This is the design I really wanna have,’” Turner said, adding that it was complete “a couple weeks later.”
“They executed it perfectly,” he continued. Turner held onto the ring for “three [or] four weeks” while he decided how he wanted to propose.
Sutton said though they’d discussed it, she had no idea it was coming.
“I had no idea when he actually proposed that it was gonna happen then,” she said.
“We have taken a lot of trips. And so we had gone to Niagara Falls about a month or two ago. And that being the honeymoon capital, everybody thought, I think when we went, that was going to happen then,” Sutton said. “I didn't know when it was going to happen.”
They were on another vacation heading to Myrtle Beach, but stopped in Asheville to break up the drive when Turner proposed in their hotel room using solo cups and Post-it notes.
“He did like a little magic trick,” she said. “There were some questions that he kind of guessed my thoughts. And then there was another piece of paper that said, ‘Will you marry me?’”“I rehearsed the magic trick a half a dozen times,” Turner added. “I had two solo cups, and under one solo cup was the wedding ring.”
“When [Lana] guessed the correct answer, then the last Post-it note said, ‘Will you marry me?’”
Sutton said the moment was “emotional because there's a lot of feelings there.”
The couple, who shared the news on Oct. 3, said their wedding date hasn’t been finalized: “We really haven't talked about any plans yet. I think we're just sort of basking in the engagement and working out some details as far as his house.”
