The New York Giants did not make a single trade ahead of Tuesday’s deadline despite previous reports indicating they would go “big-game hunting” for a playmaker to support rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart.
Instead, the 2-7 Giants tried to sell off assets to no avail, and ultimately wound up walking away from the trade deadline as the same lowly team that they were before.
The Giants elected not to bring in a playmaker at the trade deadline
Rumors throughout the last few weeks indicated that the Giants were interested in trading for a wide receiver.
They made calls and expressed interest in many of the top players on the trade block, including Miami Dolphins WR Jaylen Waddle, former Las Vegas Raiders WR Jakobi Meyers (traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars), and former New Orleans Saints WR Rasheed Shahid (traded to the Seattle Seahawks), among others.
Ultimately, the Giants didn’t get a deal done, as they felt the prices were too high for a 2-7 football team to pay.
Instead, the Giants will ask Jaxson Dart to tough it out with the receiving corps they have: Darius Slayton, Wan’Dale Robinson, and a rotating hodgepodge of backup wide receivers in the starting lineup, such as Jalin Hyatt, Beaux Collins, and Ray-Ray McCloud.
For most teams, forcing a promising rookie quarterback to play with such a severe lack of talent around him would be unacceptable. But not for the New York Giants, whose losing culture has become a disease infecting every facet of the organization from the locker room to the coaching staff and to the front office.
The Giants have a culture of losing
Trading for a wide receiver would not have been about making a push for the playoffs. At 2-7, any hopes of a postseason berth have effectively flown out the window.
However, trading for a wide receiver would have achieved one specific and important goal: it would have communicated to the locker room and, more importantly, Jaxson Dart, that this team is not content with losing.
The Giants have been 2-7 to start the year in each of their last three seasons. Every year, by early November, the season is being flushed down the drain, the players become apathetic and exert minimal effort, and the front office and coaching staff do little to nothing to right the ship — that’s called a losing culture.
The Giants’ standards are on the floor at this point. They have a losing culture, and they don’t seem hellbent on fixing it.
The Giants’ locker room has gone complacent
Meanwhile, the Giants have a promising rookie quarterback in Jaxson Dart, who admittedly “hates losing” and finds no value in morale victories.
But the rest of his team seems pretty complacent, and many of his teammates found individual and moral victories following their most recent loss against the 49ers.
“Only miss all day — warm-ups and all. Have to hit that one. My [third] miss in two years… My job is to make my kicks, which I’ve been doing a pretty damn good job of,” kicker Graham Gano said when asked about his costly missed field goal (h/t Ryan Dunleavy of The New York Post).
“I think I’m playing well, but you’ve got to make the plays. Got to make more plays,” Dexter Lawrence said when asked to evaluate his individual performance.
Quite a different tone when compared to Dart’s response when asked to evaluate his performance following the loss:
“Don’t matter, we lost,” Dart told the media.
Dart and his fellow rookies (Abdul Carter and Cam Skattebo) played for big-time collegiate programs. Winning is all they know. Losing is hard, but it’s harder on them. And it’s not something they are currently willing to tolerate — but the same can’t be said for the rest of the veterans in the locker room.
The Giants failed to demonstrate their commitment to Jaxson Dart
While Dart puts his body on the line, desperately trying to single-handedly will the Giants to victory every week, the rest of his teammates are exerting minimal effort and taking plays off.
Meanwhile, the coaching staff isn’t holding players — nor themselves — accountable.
And the front office has decided that the roster that has stumbled its way to a 2-7 record needs no alterations.
It’s a sad state of affairs for the New York Giants (again).
It should be considered a crime for the Giants to punt on another season and accept defeat, as they’ve done the previous two seasons. But the fact that they are doing just that in spite of having a rookie star quarterback at the helm makes the crime all the more heinous.
Trading for a playmaker wasn’t about making a playoff push — it was about committing to your rookie quarterback’s development, and proving that the team isn’t OK with losing football games.
Their inactivity at the trade deadline proved the opposite.