After Jaxson Dart’s season-ending knee surgery, New York Giants coach John Harbaugh has not named a potential quarterback target, but league sources have mentioned 40-year-old veteran Josh Johnson as a possible addition, via Art Stapleton of NorthJersey.com.
The connection is personal as much as practical. Johnson spent three separate stints with Harbaugh in Baltimore across 2016, 2021, 2023, and 2024, learning the same system the new Giants staff is trying to install.
He also had a brief Giants stop in 2016, so the locker room and the market would not be foreign ground.
That résumé is the whole argument. Johnson has started and backed up for a long list of clubs, including Tampa Bay, Cleveland, the Jets, San Francisco, and Washington. Last season he closed the year as Washington’s starter in back-to-back games and split them, completing 29 of 45 passes for 329 yards and a touchdown while adding a rushing score.
Those numbers are modest, but they show a quarterback who can still throw with enough zip and move when a play breaks down. That mobility matters in East Rutherford.
The Giants built parts of their offense around Dart’s dual-threat ability. Jameis Winston, now first in line, is a different kind of passer, more of a pocket presence than a runner.
After Winston entered against the Rams, the staff trimmed shifts and motions that had been tied to Dart, and skill players looked briefly out of rhythm.
Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy has said the team does not lose a massive share of the playbook without Dart, but it does lose a dimension.
Johnson would not restore Dart. He would give Harbaugh a veteran who already knows the coach’s language and can operate a version of the offense without a full rewrite.
He is currently on Cincinnati’s practice squad, which makes a signing relatively clean compared with a trade for a higher-profile name. Age is the obvious caveat.
Johnson is a forty-something journeyman, not a long-term solution. The Giants are looking for stability through the rest of a season that suddenly hinges on Winston and whoever stands behind him, including the possibility of using a skill player as an emergency option.
A reunion would be typical of Harbaugh’s career. In Baltimore he often kept familiar backups who understood the standard and the scheme. Johnson fits that mold: not flashy, already trusted, available.
Whether New York actually brings him in remains unconfirmed.
What the rumor itself reveals is simpler. After losing Dart, the Giants need a quarterback who can walk into the building and speak the coach’s dialect on day one. Johnson has been that player before.
