Jaxson Dart said he is puzzled by his trips to the medical tent. He made the same argument in December.

Jaxson Dart was evaluated for a concussion in the sideline medical tent during the Giants' 13-10 preseason loss to the Vikings on Saturday, was cleared, and returned to throw a 15-yard touchdown pass to rookie receiver Malachi Fields. Afterward he said he had not expected to be pulled at all.

“Well, I never thought that I was going to be taken out,” Dart said at his postgame press availability, per the transcript published by Giants.com. Asked whether he would change anything, he said: “No. So, I’m going to keep playing until they tell me I’m not playing. I want to be out there.”

On the evaluation itself, he said: “As far as the blue tent, I really respect the rules and the thought behind the NFL has of keeping players healthy and reviewing things, but at the same time, I’m still puzzled by it just feeling like every time that I get hit, I find my way in there. Which at times, I still try to wrap my head around, but that’s all that I’m going to say about that situation.”

The hit was a sack by Vikings safety Jay Ward. Andy Backstrom of Yahoo Sports wrote that Dart’s “head cocked forward before he was brought suddenly to the ground.” Priyanshu Choudhary of Pro Football Network wrote that the hit landed on Dart’s midsection after running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. blew the block. Jameis Winston entered to start the second quarter while Dart was in the tent, according to Dan Salomone of Giants.com.

Giants coach John Harbaugh said, “My feeling in that moment was we need to block better.” Of the protection, he added: “No, he can assume he’s picked up there. I mean, I think he will feel pressure. He has good pocket presence, and he did it on the red zone play. He got himself out, so I think he’s good at that. But that’s one that should be picked up.” Dart said: “We just had a miscommunication.”

Asked whether he was surprised Dart was sent to the tent, Harbaugh said: “Honestly, I was. Honestly, I was. But I would say that their job is to err on the side of player safety, so I can’t argue with that either.”

Jaxson Dart made the same argument in December 2025

Dart was pulled for an evaluation in the fourth quarter of a 29-21 loss to the Commanders on Dec. 14, 2025, after Javon Kinlaw and Eddie Goldman hit him on a first-and-goal run at the 2. He did not score. He returned for the fourth-down play and finished the game. Austin Nivison of CBS Sports reported the sequence, and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk wrote that Dart missed two snaps during the evaluation.

Dart said afterward, in quotes published by Patricia Traina of Sports Illustrated: “This definitely wasn’t the first time that I’ve been surprised that I’ve had to come out.” He added, “But I was definitely surprised, just didn’t feel like it was that big of a hit at all.”

He also said: “I’m not sure of the reason. I think that would just be something that hopefully can get communicated.” And: “I mean, you don’t just see people getting taken out of the game like that. I definitely feel like there’s a sensitivity for some reason.”

Dan Benton of Giants Wire published a fuller version of the first part of that answer: “I’m not really sure what the reason was I had to come out of the game. It was just a really – it was weird. I don’t understand it.”

Asked what he could do about it, Dart said, per Traina: “Maybe just run the other way. I have no idea. I’m not sure.”

Mike Kafka, the interim head coach at the time, said the Giants were “not gonna change much in terms of how we play the game,” and that Dart “knows when he needs to protect himself and when he needs to go make a play,” per Nivison.

Dart took a milder version of the same posture just under four months before that. After the evaluation in the 2025 preseason finale, he said, according to The Associated Press: “You would feel uncomfortable if you got the air knocked out of you, too. I’m fine. I’m just trying to get my breath.”

How many concussion evaluations has Jaxson Dart had?

The figure being repeated since Saturday is five during Dart’s rookie season, and it traces to one report. Florio wrote on Dec. 15, 2025: “As noted by Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com, Dart has now been checked for concussions five times in 10 games this season, including the preseason.” Traina wrote the same night that Dart had been to the medical tent in five of his 10 starts dating back to the preseason. EssentiallySports on Sunday cited a count from NFL analyst Warren Sharp of “five trips to the medical tent in a 10-game span last year.”

Counting Saturday’s, Michael Haney and Traina wrote at Sports Illustrated that it was Dart’s “sixth trip in just over a season to the medical tent for a concussion evaluation.” The New York Post called it his sixth sideline concussion evaluation in the past 365 days.

GiantsGator found no published account that itemizes the five. Four can be matched to dated, contemporaneous published reports.

Aug. 21, 2025, preseason finale vs. New England. Linebacker Jack Gibbens hit Dart at the end of a 23-yard scramble late in the first quarter and Dart fumbled. He was evaluated in the tent and cleared but did not return, and Winston finished the game. (The Associated Press; Blake Silverman, Sports Illustrated)

Oct. 9, 2025, Week 6 vs. Philadelphia. Eagles linebacker Patrick Johnson sacked Dart from the left side and drove him into Eagles defender Azeez Ojulari. Dart’s head appeared to be pushed back across Ojulari’s body as he fell, per Michael Baca’s account at NFL.com. Dart was cleared and returned in the fourth quarter of a 34-17 win.

Nov. 9, 2025, Week 10 against Chicago. Austin Booker and C.J. Gardner-Johnson hit Dart on a designed run in the third quarter with 5:05 left and he fumbled. He stayed in for the last two plays of the quarter and was pulled as he went back out for the next drive. Russell Wilson started the fourth. This is the one of the four that produced a diagnosed concussion, and Dart missed the next two games. (The Associated Press; Will Backus, CBS Sports)

Dec. 14, 2025, Week 15 vs. Washington. The evaluation described above.

The fifth is not identified in anything GiantsGator could find. The count is also not agreed on. Big Blue View wrote the night of the Washington game that Dart “has now undergone concussion checks on roughly a half-dozen occasions dating back to preseason.” Jeff Stotts of RotoWire wrote on Nov. 14, 2025, that Dart had reportedly been through the process at least four separate times since the start of the preseason. Nobody reconciled the figures at the time and nobody has since.

Raanan’s count ran through the Dec. 14 game. Dart played Weeks 16, 17 and 18 after it, and no reporting establishes whether he was evaluated in any of the three.

Why the NFL’s concussion protocol can pull a player who was not hit in the head

The protocol does not require that a player’s head be struck, and it does not turn on the player’s own account of the hit.

Removal is mandatory whenever a player shows or reports a sign or symptom of concussion, or whenever a concern is raised by the club’s athletic trainer, a club physician, the booth athletic trainer spotter, a coach, a teammate, a game official or the sideline or booth unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant, according to the NFL and NFL Players Association concussion protocol. A raised concern alone is enough. The version the league posts publicly is updated as of September 2024.

The booth spotter has a separate trigger and is the only one of those people who can force a stoppage. His trigger is a mechanism of injury — the protocol’s example is a hit to the head or neck — followed by a potential concussion sign. To stop the game he says “MEDICAL TIME OUT” three times to the side judge over the official-to-official communication system, and the side judge stops play. The league counted 26 medical timeouts in the 2025 season.

The mechanism condition turns on the hit, not on where the player felt it, which is why an evaluation can follow a sack a quarterback describes as a blow to the midsection.

The exam takes place inside the tent or in the locker room and includes, among other components, a complete video review of the injury with the booth consultant, a symptom review and a neurological exam covering the cervical spine, speech, eye movements and pupils, gait, coordination and balance. Four findings require removal and prohibit a return: loss of consciousness, including impact seizure and fencing posture; ataxia; confusion; and amnesia.

The Giants’ $315,000 concussion protocol fine

The Week 6 evaluation became the subject of a joint NFL and NFLPA review, first reported by Tom Pelissero of NFL Network. Traina reported that Brian Daboll poked his head into the tent during the evaluation and was then seen in a brief but heated discussion with one of the team’s physicians. Daboll said afterward that he apologized directly to the physician.

The review found that Daboll and Cam Skattebo “entered the tent and spoke with Dart before his evaluation was complete, ‘creating the perception that they were interfering with Dart’s exam,’” as quoted by Jeremy Bergman of NFL.com. The joint statement added: “While the parties agreed that Coach Daboll’s and Mr. Skattebo’s actions had no actual impact on the exam or the care that Mr. Dart received, their conduct was inconsistent with and demonstrated a disregard for the concussion protocol’s requirements and therefore constituted a violation.” The league fined the Giants $200,000, Daboll $100,000 and Skattebo $15,000.

“We have protocols in place as a league to ensure player safety, and we need to allow our medical staff to execute those protocols without interference,” Giants president and CEO John Mara said in a statement quoted by Baca.

Of the four evaluations matched here, the first came before the fine, the second is the one that produced it and the last two came after. GiantsGator found no source connecting the two, and no public comment from the league, the union, the Giants or Dart on whether the October episode changed how Dart is monitored.

There is no public count of concussion evaluations by player

The NFL reported 538 in-game concussion evaluations in the 2025 season, a figure it released Jan. 30, 2026 and published on its injury-data page. That page breaks the data out by play type and injury category. It does not break evaluations out by player or by position. Public injury reports record diagnosed concussions rather than sideline checks, so a tent visit Dart was cleared from would not appear on one.

There is no sourced basis for saying whether five or six evaluations across roughly 13 starts is unusual for a quarterback.

Giants players cheered Dart for sliding in practice

Dart slid at the end of a scramble at training camp on Aug. 10. The defense loudly cheered and Harbaugh applauded, Timothy Rapp of Bleacher Report reported, crediting ESPN’s Jordan Raanan. Brian Burns said, per Rapp: “We’ve been begging him to do that for a while. So, I’m glad that he’s starting to practice it.”

Who initiated each of Dart’s evaluations has been reported once. Daboll said after the Chicago game, according to the AP: “As he was going back out on the field, just didn’t seem right, so called the trainers over and said, ‘Let’s get him out and make sure he gets looked at.’” The other four are unattributed.

On Saturday’s, Harbaugh gave a partial answer without being asked the question directly. Asked whether Dart had told him he was fine, Harbaugh said: “No, that was upstairs. He was – yeah, he was fine. He told me after. He said after, he didn’t tell me after, but I heard he said after (that) he just got the wind knocked out of him. So, he was fine.”

Upstairs is the booth. Harbaugh did not say who up there made the call, and was not asked to specify. Florio wrote Saturday that “no player or team has ever previously suggested that one specific person has been somehow targeted for medical evaluations,” which is his characterization rather than a documented search. GiantsGator found no comment from the NFL or the NFLPA on Dart’s remarks.