NY Giants: Jameis Winston is exactly the backup Jaxson Dart needs

When Jaxson Dart went down with a concussion last season, the Giants handed the offense to Jameis Winston, who started three games and threw for 567 yards. New York had signed him last offseason for that exact scenario.

Dart is now the entrenched franchise quarterback, and the backup job behind him is about two things: a floor if he misses time, and a veteran voice while he grows into John Harbaugh’s offense. Winston checks both boxes without denting the cap.

The contract was built for exactly this

Winston signed a two-year, $8 million deal in March 2025 that can climb to $16 million through incentives, according to Spotrac. His 2026 base salary sits at $3.95 million, a bargain rate for a quarterback with a starter’s résumé who can carry the offense for a month if needed. The Giants are paying backup money for a passer who has thrown for more than 20,000 career yards.

Dart is entering his second season, and any team building around a first-time franchise passer needs a QB2 who can win a game or two rather than sink the season while the starter recovers. Paying $3.95 million for that insurance keeps the cap flexible for the rest of the roster.

What Winston still brings to the field

Winston was the No. 1 overall pick in 2015 and led the NFL in passing yards in 2019, when he threw for 5,109 yards and 33 touchdowns and became the only player in league history to pair 30 touchdowns with 30 interceptions. The arm talent and the turnovers have always traveled together, but a cleaner version showed up in Cleveland in 2024. Although he posted a 13-to-12 touchdown-to-interception ratio across seven starts, he had a couple of spectacular performances mixed into that stretch, including a 497-yard, four-touchdown outing in a shootuout loss against the Denver Broncos in Week 13.

His three-game Giants sample in 2025 fit the pattern: he completed 37 of 66 attempts for 567 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, and he added a rushing score. That is the profile of a backup who will keep an offense on schedule and occasionally win a shootout, which is exactly what a team asks of a QB2.

The room behind Dart is settled

Dart put up 24 total touchdowns as a rookie and locked down the job, leaving Winston as the clear No. 2 and offseason addition Brandon Allen filling out the room, though Allen is unlikely to make the 53-man roster. Russell Wilson, who opened 2025 as the starter before Dart took over, is gone, and Tommy DeVito is in New England, so the depth chart carries none of last year’s clutter.

Winston is easily a top-five backup quarterback heading into 2026. His throwing power and big-game reps under the new staff of Harbaugh, offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, and quarterbacks coach Brian Callahan are all valuable traits. For a room built around a 22-year-old starter, that experience behind him is crucial.

Money well spent behind the young starter

The Giants spent the spring flooding the roster with cheap veterans on short deals, and Winston is one of the better deals they signed last offseason. He gives Dart a mentor who has seen every coverage and a fallback who can hold the season together for a month. If Dart stays healthy, Winston barely plays, and the deal still pays for itself in the meeting room. That is the whole job, and Winston is built to do it.

By Anthony Rivardo

Anthony Rivardo is the COO of Empire Sports Media and the host of Fireside Giants, a New York Giants ... More about Anthony Rivardo