The NFL Should Be Treating More Players Like Jaxson Dart

It can all be true, you know. Josh Allen necessitated a concussion check in his first preseason start as a rookie in 2018, has played the game with all the grace of a liquored up cowboy since and has seen the inside of a blue medical tent fewer times in almost a decade than Jaxson Dart has in a year of professional football. The NFL takes care of Allen with all the love and concern of a wanton pageant mother, and Giants fans will wave this as a cudgel each and every time Dart is escorted into the medical tent when Allen gets to simply rumble to the sideline for a hit of smelling salts.

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Also … Dart got absolutely rocked by a free-blitzing Vikings defender this past Saturday after his running back miscommunicated on a block and, before we had the luxury of viewing the play 600 times in slow motion to interpret it more accurately, appeared to have his head snap back violently before hitting the turf. After hitting the ground, Dart, who, I’m guessing got the wind knocked out of him, curled up into a half-moon shape and seemed to melt into the identically colored helmet logo at midfield underneath him. If a sideline full of doctors saw that and collectively said, He’s probably fine, no reason to check that out, they should have been investigated for malpractice.

Such is the state of the NFL’s modern era of head trauma protection. Dart feels as though he’s being persecuted for his style of play when, in reality, the standard of care is not applied to the most premium position as aggressively as it should be, which makes Dart feel like more of an outlier. I agree with Giants fans who say that, if Dart’s helmet had literally exploded the way Patrick Mahomes’s did during the playoffs two years ago, Dart would have probably been airlifted to Hackensack Meridian in a military Black Hawk helicopter. I disagree with Giants fans-and, really, Dart and both of Dart’s current and former head coaches-who feel like pulling him from two plays in a game is some kind of profound injustice. A few years ago, both Mahomesand Lamar Jackson were plucked out of playoff games to be examined for head injuries.

Also, consider the other moments when Dart was sent to the medical tent.

• In a game against the Eagles in Week 6, Dart was sent to the medical tent after taking the hit below. Notice how he rolls over on his back and holds onto his head.

Jaxson Dart went to the medical tent after taking this hit. pic.twitter.com/qnQniKijQo

– TSN (@TSN_Sports) October 10, 2025

• He reacted much the same way in a game against the Bears in Week 10, when he was hit on a running play, fumbled and proceeded to hold onto his head. He was checked that week for a concussion in between quarters and it was ruled that he actually had one. Below is a look at that play.

The play Jaxson Dart suffered a concussion. #Bears game pic.twitter.com/OoebyfDHuJ

– 𝓵𝓮𝓸𝓶𝓸𝓻𝓭 (@leodeqi) November 9, 2025

• Neither the television copy existing on NFL Plus, nor the all-22 copy of the play below against the Commanders in Week 15 has a full depiction of Dart’s reaction to this hit, but his head and neck clearly got sandwiched after a defender’s kneecap accordioned his upper body. It was the go-to-break shot by Fox. Still, it appears to me that the direction Dart was headed after the moment of impact was not to stand up and do a cartwheel. This was also the game after Dart returned from concussion protocol.

Jaxson Dart checks out of the game after taking this hit. He has checked into the blue medical tent pic.twitter.com/A3X15nAAr3

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– Talkin’ Giants (@TalkinGiants) December 14, 2025

My point is that if someone were to fall in front of you in the street and behave in the way that Dart has in most of these clips, you would, with a lick of common sense and a beating heart, wait to leave the scene until that person was seen by a medical professional. And NFL sideline operators are trained to pick up on certain signs and indicators, the most obvious of which is a player positioning his body in a way that seems to say: Man, my head really hurts. Are these experts supposed to guess the degree to which Dart is injured after indicating that something has happened to his head, much like many of us do every time our 5-year-old tumbles off the couch and tells us that, “Everything is broken and I can’t go to bed”? We can’t simply roll our eyes and say, “That’s just Jaxson, he’s a liar and is just mad we don’t have the batteries for his Spider-Man nightlight” when it comes to potential head trauma. We have to wait a play or two to let doctors figure it out for themselves.

This is not to say that Dart is doing anything wrong, by the way. I am 100% certain that playing professional football hurts a great deal and you should have the right to indicate that. Had any of us been involved in this most recent play where Dart was vaporized by Jay Ward, the next available photograph of us would have been Hugh Freeze–style in the supine position, motionless on a hospital bed. Controlling the reaction to the hit would only help a player stay in the game, bolstering some version of the warrior code that these players have been abiding by for a century.

No, the answer is to treat other quarterbacks the same way the NFL treats Dart, not to stop treating Dart the way the league does now-which is with a degree of common sense. Two of those plays above, with Dart’s reaction included, should have triggered concussion protocol for almost any passer in the NFL. From there, the additional registered concussion Dart sustained-which was, according to then head coach Brian Daboll, set in motion by an instance on the sideline that was glaring enough to trigger an immediate review-should place Dart under tighter scrutiny, just like there should be precious little tolerance for Tua Tagovailoa to avoid concussion checks after a horrific series of hits to the head.

This entire process is woefully imperfect but the stated goal is noble: to have these players remember most of what took place during their amazing careers and enjoy their lives once they’re finished. I interviewed John Olerud, the two-time Major League Baseball All-Star, about this in 2024. Olerud had a subarachnoid hemorrhage in college, which meant that he had to wear a batting helmet in the field to avoid a potentially lethal hit from a line drive. After doctors gave him the green light to take it off, he kept it on anyway. He didn’t care about a code or, as Dart puts it now, a narrative. He cared about having the full use of his faculties. He cared about being alive.

That’s all the NFL is trying to do here: step in and help when it feels warranted. We’re not asking Dart to change the way he plays (even though John Harbaugh literally applauded a moment where he slid to avoid contact in practice last week, potentially indicating his true feelings on the situation). We’re asking him to accept a process that does more good than harm.

This article was originally published on www.si.com as The NFL Should Be Treating More Players Like Jaxson Dart.

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This story was originally published August 18, 2026 at 7:13 AM.