The hiring of John Harbaugh as coach of the New York Giants has fueled hope that the franchise can experience a rapid turnaround after the 14 dismal seasons that have followed their most recent Super Bowl title. But for all of the optimism generated by the hiring of the Super Bowl-champion coach, second-year quarterback Jaxson Dart will be the most important factor in determining the team’s fate.Dart’s presence was cited as a driving reason why Harbaugh chose to come to New York over a handful of other opportunities. Dart showed flashes of brilliance as a rookie, demonstrating a playmaking ability possessed only by the best quarterbacks in the league. But those highlights were balanced by plenty of moments when Dart looked like a 22-year-old struggling to figure out complex NFL defenses.The Giants hope Dart can be the next in a line of quarterbacks to make a Year 2 leap. But it won’t be an easy process, especially as Dart adjusts to a new offense he said in May is asking him to do “a lot of things I haven’t done before.”“I feel like I’m not even the same person at all,” Dart said Wednesday when assessing his maturation over the past year. “Obviously, the growth you make from the experiences that you have from one year to the next. I just feel like I’ve grown a ton through this offseason.”Will the Eagles three-peat as NFC East Champions?Charlotte CarrollHarbaugh oversaw one of the best Year 2 leaps in NFL history while in Baltimore. After making seven starts as a raw rookie in 2018, Lamar Jackson blossomed into an MVP while leading the Ravens to an NFL-best 14-2 record in his second season.No one is banking on that type of breakout season for Dart. But there is at least a blueprint for the coaching staff to follow as Dart transitions into his second season.“I think the approach has been similar from the basic idea that we’re trying to build an offense for Jaxson Dart that is amenable to his skill set,” Harbaugh said. “We did the same thing with Lamar. But they’re different people, different quarterbacks — all those kinds of things are different.”The offensive system the Ravens devised for Jackson was hailed as revolutionary. They blended heavy personnel groupings with Jackson’s singular rushing ability and a passing attack that exploited defenses focused on stopping the run.Greg Roman, who was promoted to Baltimore’s offensive coordinator in 2019, spearheaded that plan. With Roman designing the rushing attack, the Ravens set an NFL record with 3,296 yards rushing in 2019. The Ravens led the league in rushing again in 2020, and never finished lower than third in Roman’s four seasons as OC. The Ravens moved on from Roman to Todd Monken in 2023 when there was a belief that the offense needed to evolve.Harbaugh has reunited with Roman, whose title with the Giants is senior offensive assistant, but he’s truly the run game coordinator. Roman has teamed with offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, whose roots are with Andy Reid in Kansas City, and quarterbacks coach Brian Callahan, who is an offshoot of the Sean McVay coaching tree from his time as Bengals OC under Zac Taylor.This melding of offensive minds has created a system that will challenge Dart to adapt. He essentially ran an NFL version of the Ole Miss offense as a rookie under previous coach Brian Daboll. Leaning on concepts Dart was comfortable with helped Dart enjoy early success, but there is limited upside to such an RPO-heavy offense as defenses evolve. It’s become a trend around the league for teams to pivot to playing their quarterbacks under center more.That’s been an adjustment for Dart, who operated almost exclusively from the shotgun in college. He was under center on 20.1 percent of his snaps last season, which was the third-lowest rate among quarterbacks with at least 300 dropbacks.The Giants, who made signing 300-pound fullback Pat Ricard from Baltimore a priority in free agency, are planning to deploy a power rushing attack. The quarterback needs to operate from under center to facilitate that. In turn, the play-action passing game should be opened up.“The unique thing about this offense is we have strategically built an offense specifically for Jaxson,” backup quarterback Jameis Winston said. “There are a lot of things that allow him to extend plays naturally and just allow him to do his best asset, to see the field. When you have a package where you know everything looks like run, run, run, but we find ways to create explosives out of that, we are at an advantage.”Dart’s rookie season rarely featured under center play action. Instead, Dart ran the offense while surveying the defense from the shotgun. Under center play action requires the quarterback to turn his back to the defense, which makes reading the defense post-snap more challenging. There’s also a greater emphasis on Dart’s footwork in this system, which must be synced up with the timing of the receivers’ routes.“When I went back and watched him play last year, it doesn’t always seem like the rhythm and timing of his feet is real intentional based off the routes or concepts they’re running,” said an offensive assistant who was a candidate for a role on the Giants’ staff this offseason and was granted anonymity so he could speak candidly about another team’s player. “It looked like it was just like, ‘I’m going to drop back and find somebody open; I’ll just run around and (hope) … somebody will be open.’”The transition to the more precise footwork in this system predictably came with growing pains. Callahan called tying Dart’s footwork to his eyes “a constant work in progress” in the spring. Callahan said they had “some very direct conversations” about areas Dart needed to improve and charted out a plan to address those.“There’s a timing and footwork element to everything in the passing game,” Callahan said during minicamp in June. “If your feet are in rhythm with what the play design is, whether it’s a five-step (drop) or a seven-step or a play-action pass — whatever that timing is for the routes and the route depth with the footwork, is really important. Along with that is where your eyes are. It’s really been an eye discipline and footwork consistency that have been the two things we’ve focused a lot on.”None of this was a surprise to Dart, who identified his footwork in the pocket as an area he was striving to improve early in the offseason.“I just think from a footwork standpoint, being able to be cleaner throughout my reads,” Dart said during the first week of OTAs.” There are times when you look back on tape, and maybe you weren’t as quick as you wanted to be through a progression. You look back, and you say, ‘Why was that?’ And it starts with your eyes, making sure they’re in the right spots. And that’s been a huge emphasis with Coach Callahan.”Dart and the coaches believe he has made considerable progress, but it will be an ongoing process to perfect his footwork. The footwork inconsistency dovetails with another weakness, which was Dart’s sack rate. Despite his athleticism, Dart ranked 29th in sack rate and 28th in pressure-to-sack rate.“One, he’s too competitive at times. He gets himself out of (trouble) a lot, but it’s the NFL,” ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky said of the inflated sack rate. “Two, it’s probably still a little bit of (playing) recess football. You’re still playing playmaker, create-a-play football rather than quarterbacking at a consistently high rate.”Dart has already proven he can hit home runs — think of his scrambling 35-yard touchdown pass to Wan’Dale Robinson to spark the Giants’ 34-17 upset of the Eagles in the quarterback’s third career start.