Jaxson Dart’s 15-yard touchdown run ignites Giants’ offense on opening drive of his first start

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — Jaxson Dart ran for a 15-yard touchdown to cap an impressive 90-yard drive on the opening possession of his first game as the New York Giants’ starting quarterback Sunday.

Dart, the 25th overall pick out of Ole Miss in April, got the start against the undefeated Los Angeles Chargers in place of the benched Russell Wilson and the Giants’ struggling offense was sparked by the rookie.

Coming out of the halftime break, Dart was listed by the Giants with a hamstring injury but he took the field with the offense. On the seventh play of New York’s first possession to open the third quarter, Dart showed his hamstring was feeling fine when he ran for 39 yards before taking a big hit from Cam Hart.

But the big play by Dart was negated by a holding penalty on center John Michael Schmitz and Dart was then evaluated for a head injury. The quarterback was replaced by Wilson for two plays and the Giants announced Dart cleared tests for a concussion and would return.

He was back on the field for the Giants’ next possession.

After the Chargers punted on their first series of the game, Dart and the Giants took the field at their 10 — and the quarterback received a standing ovation from the MetLife Stadium crowd as he jogged from the sideline.

His first snap was a handoff to Cam Skattebo and his first pass one play later to Malik Nabers fell incomplete, but Tarheeb Still was called for pass interference. Two plays later, Dart’s first NFL completion went for 7 yards to Nabers.

After Skattebo ran for 20 yards on the next two plays, Dart took off on runs of 9 and 4 yards to put the ball at the Chargers 28. Dart connected with a sliding Nabers — who was later carted from the field with an apparent right leg injury — for a 13-yard completion to make it first-and-10 at the 15.

Dart then took the snap, wriggled up the middle and scooted into the end zone nearly untouched for a touchdown to put New York up 7-0 with 9:20 left in the opening quarter.

Dart led the Giants on two more scoring drives in the first half, field goals of 22 and 31 yards by Jude McAtamney. The rookie was 7 of 11 for 59 yards through two quarters and ran six times for 44 yards and the score.

Dart, who got six snaps without a pass attempt as a change of pace to Wilson in the past two games, was given the starting job earlier this week by coach Brian Daboll as the Giants look for their first win after an 0-3 start.

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