2025 NFL Draft Quarterback Scouting Report - Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss
Hey all,
Back with another edition of my 2025 NFL Draft QB Scouting Series! Last week, I mentioned I was planning to cover Carson Beck but with him pulling a Cam Ward and returning to school, I had to pull an audible! So, I’ll instead be covering Ole Miss quarterback, Jaxson Dart. I have the full written eval below. If you want to check out the YouTube video, for Dart, you can check it out with the link below:
Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss
Height: 6’2”; Weight: 225 pounds
Age on Draft Day: 21 years and 11 months
Class: Senior
Overall Grade: 2.77/4 (Good Role Player)
2024 Games Charted: South Carolina, LSU, Georgia, Florida
Totals from Games Charted:
Short Throw Accuracy on Platform: 50/56 (89.29%)
Short Throw Accuracy off Platform: 13/14 (92.86%)
Medium Throw Accuracy on Platform: 57/78 (73.08%)
Medium Throw Accuracy off Platform: 1/8 (12.5%)
Intermediate Throw Accuracy on Platform: 35/50 (70%)
Intermediate Accuracy off Platform: 3/10 (30%)
Deep Throw Accuracy on Platform: 16/26 (61.54%)
Deep Throw Accuracy off Platform: 4/8 (50%)
Left Side of Field Accuracy: 84/128 (65.63%)
Middle of Field Accuracy: 29/42 (69.05%)
Right Side of Field Accuracy: 66/90 (73.33%)
Total Accuracy: 179/260 (68.85%)
On Platform, Way Off Target Throws (Vertical/Horizontal): 11/5 (2.75/1.25 per game)
Off Platform, Way Off Target Throws (Vertical/Horizontal): 4/2 (1/0.5 per game)
Sacks/Fumbles: 13/1 (3.25/0.25 per game)
Deflections/Pass Interference: 7/2 (1.75/0.5 per game)
Throwaways/INTs/Dropped INTs: 5/4/5 (1.25/1/1.25 per game)
Drops: 14 (3.5 per game)
Designed Runs/Scrambles: 20/14 (5/3.5 per game)
Success vs Blitz: 18/49 (36.73%)
Success vs Pressure: 45/91 (49.45%)
Footwork: C-
Pocket Presence: C-
“Playmaking”: C+
Short Throw Accuracy: A
Medium Throw Accuracy: B+
Intermediate Throw Accuracy: A-
Deep Throw Accuracy: B
Throw on the Run: B+
Success Against Pressure/Blitz: C+
Arm Strength: B-
Release: B+
Ball Security: B
Top Starter Potential: C-
Strengths:
Throwing with anticipation
Quick release and is capable of diverse arm angles
Tough when making passes while taking a hit and while on the run
Good scrambler
Good accuracy in most areas of the field
Areas of Improvement:
Good, not great arm strength
Difficulty progressing through reads
Benefited from a gimmicky offense
Footwork
Consistency under pressure
Comp: Christian Ponder
Jaxson Dart is going to be one of the most interesting quarterbacks to see how others evaluate him and will likely be a very good indicator of how much statistical performance goes into each evaluator’s eval. If you evaluate stats highly, he should be one of the top quarterbacks in this class. However, as my grade likely suggests, I have some significant concerns about Dart. Before getting to those concerns, I do want to recognize the positives since there are some traits NFL teams can work with. First, Dart’s accuracy is one of his most clear strengths. Statistically, he has one of the best completion percentages in this QB class and the ball placement scoring can back this up. I would consider it elite and it can fluctuate sometimes but overall, it is something that should translate to the NFL. Also, Dart has a very quick release which lets him get the ball to his target quickly and accurately. He can also throw at multiple release angles which helps him squeeze the ball into tight windows. His release is also pretty compact as he does a good job keeping the ball up at a good level and not dipping it too much. Another encouraging sign with Dart is that he is very good at throwing with anticipation. Now it could be argued that his familiarity at Ole Miss helped in this aspect, but I think it still deserves to be recognized since other quarterbacks in this group still struggle despite also being multi-year starters. Also, though he can have some blunders sensing pressure, Dart is willing to throw the ball away and negate a loss and isn’t afraid to take a hit to deliver an accurate throw to a receiver downfield. He also has good legs which gives him some good scramble ability, and looked pretty good in his designed QB run looks. Mechanically, there are areas of improvement with a lot being a question mark due to his offense but despite the offense not having much of true dropbacks, the times he does go back he has decent timing and rhythm. He also did a good job keeping his feet flat and decreased how often he bounces in the pocket.
So a lot of positive traits that should align with a very promising quarterback prospect with his stats and experience right? Well, not quite. I want to first start with Dart’s offense since it will be this big looming thing in his entire profile for me and for a lot of the evaluators who are more film people Lane Kiffen’s offense at Ole Miss is something that leaves a lot to be desired when evaluating a quarterback’s ability to process and beat NFL defenses. The offense has a high emphasis on play action with one of, if not the highest, rate in this quarterback group with Dart using play action on 51.9% of his passes for 2024. To put in perspective how high that is, that’s nearly double the rate of most of the other quarterbacks in this class. What that play action does is it causes linebackers to get caught going to the line of scrimmage and opening up the intermediate areas of the field. Now credit to Dart for being able to get the ball into those created windows but what compounds my concern about Dart is that Kiffen’s offense also is primarily a first-read offense and focused on one side of the field. Meaning that most of those first-reads are typically in that intermediate area and if that is taken away, the rest of the reads are on that same side of the field. You can actually notice that even without the All-22 film if you watch Dart’s eyes as most snaps his head is very stationary in one zone of the field. That just isn’t translatable to the NFL where you need to be able to read the full field and work through progressions. Now some quarterbacks like Bo Nix have come from gimmicky offenses and have done well in the NFL but the difference is their ability to work past their first read. Nix clearly was working through all his progressions whereas Dart can get stuck staring down his first read and struggles to work through the rest of the progressions. This has led to Dart forcing the ball into tight windows to his first read or losing track of the pass rush and taking unnecessary sacks despite the offense making it less likely to take sacks. In general, Dart is too static in the pocket and doesn’t typically make subtle movements to extend his time since he has trouble multitasking in the pocket. When he does notice pressure, he can become very panicked causing his struggles against pressure and blitzes. Now his final grade against pressure and blitzes ended up okay, but honestly, his Florida game did a lot of the heavy lifting. Had I not included that Florida game, he would have ended up with a grade lower than all 18 of the quarterbacks I graded for 2024 and likely for all of the quarterbacks this year. That is incredibly concerning and a major red flag that would be irresponsible to look past. As for his mechanics, it’s about what I would expect from a quarterback with less than 30 snaps under center in his entire college career. As I mentioned, he doesn’t get an opportunity to do a standard dropback and does more of a brief shuffle on most plays. His base can fluctuate and he doesn’t consistently drive the ball with his lower body effectively. When he does need to use his lower body, he will sometimes overstride on some of his deeper throws and he often throws a pretty flat deep ball with not a lot of arc which can make it a bit easier for defenders to make a play on it. His footwork can also fall apart when he gets frazzled by pressure and tries to rush a throw leading to him not aligning his feet to his target. His release, while good, can be a bit optimized and he has a tendency to do a quick pat before throwing the ball. He also sometimes pulls the ball back a bit too far in his windup. Finally, while his arm strength is solid, it is far from elite and I think that impacted his deep ball accuracy.
Jaxson Dart is a player who I think there will be a ton of variance in how he’s perceived by people. If you are willing to trust the traits and are a big believer that he can overcome his deficits as a field general, then I can understand having him higher. Personally, if Dart was a first-year starter in a new system, I could more easily buy into that argument. However, we are talking about a quarterback who is now in year 3 as the starter at Ole Miss and in Lane Kiffen’s offense and still hasn’t proven that he can handle pressure/blitzes and read the field as a veteran player. I think the last glimmer of hope is Dart’s game against Florida where he arguably had the best game of his college career and was great against pressure and blitzes. Now he had potentially the dumbest finish to a game of his college career, but outside of those final two drives, Dart was looking more like a serious quarterback. Unfortunately, I feel I’ve just seen too much of Dart to believe that he will suddenly flip the switch and be a more NFL-ready quarterback. At best, I think he’s a player who will need at least one full year to sit back and adjust to the NFL and likely will need even more than that based on what he’s shown in college. Due to both being very accurate passers who could pick up yards on the ground, having adequate arm strength to get by as a potential starter, and both being divisive quarterback prospects, I have Christian Ponder as Jaxson Dart’s comp. Both Ponder and Dart also had really difficult times reading the full field, struggled with pressure/blitzes, and could make some real boneheaded plays. Both also had issues managing the pocket and could get stuck staring down their primary read. Like Ponder, I think Dart could be fool’s gold for those hoping he has a chance to become a high quality-starter in the NFL.