Stephen A. Smith urges Giants to pursue Shedeur Sanders after Jaxson Dart injury

The New York Giants’ season is in peril after losing quarterback Jaxson Dart to injury, which is why Stephen A. Smith is turning to Shedeur Sanders as their savior.

Dart suffered a knee injury during the first drive of New York’s Monday Night Football loss to the Los Angeles Rams this week. And after the Giants initially downplayed the severity of the injury, believing their quarterback “avoided disaster,” they later learned Dart would need to undergo season-ending knee surgery.

Given how poorly backup quarterback Jameis Winston played against the Rams, questions remain about whether the Giants need a better option to keep their season alive.

“I would tell the Giants to go out and pursue Shedeur Sanders” – Stephen A. Smith pic.twitter.com/Uq85U5ZlW9

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 24, 2026

“I would tell the Giants to go out and pursue Shedeur Sanders,” Smith said Thursday morning on First Take. “I ain’t gonna lie to you. That’s what would be on my mind.”

Smith defended his position by noting how mistake-laden Winston is and has been throughout his career as a quarterback. But why should the Giants be so desperate to replace Winston?

Heading into the season, the Giants were viewed as having one of the league’s better backup quarterbacks in Winston. That might not mean they wanted Winston to start 15 games. But the Giants weren’t a Super Bowl contender with Dart — they probably weren’t even going to be a playoff team. And with John Harbaugh’s job being about as safe as any head coach in NFL history in his first season with the Giants, there probably isn’t much urgency to replace Winston.

Let’s say the Giants, however, did want to go out and find a better quarterback than Winston. Sanders is not the answer. He’s not the answer from the Giants’ perspective, and he probably isn’t available from the Cleveland Browns’ perspective. If the Giants are going to get a quarterback in-season, they should get a running threat who can run a similar offense to the one they built around Dart. Winston isn’t a running threat, which means they’d need to drastically alter the offense. Sanders similarly is not a running threat.

From the Browns’ perspective, Watson is unlikely to last the entire season as their starting quarterback, despite his vintage performance in Week 2. Once they’re done with Watson, it would bode well for Cleveland to see whether Sanders has progressed from his subpar rookie campaign. There’s no reason to think the Giants would consider pursuing Shedeur Sanders in-season. There’s no reason to think the Browns would consider trading him. There’s no reason to reference Sanders to the Giants as a talking point, except for the fact that it was undoubtedly going to garner attention.