Former Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart, the New York Giants’ second of two first round draft picks this year, was set to make his NFL debut Sunday. His opponent? Emerging MVP candidate Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers.
The Chargers are off to a 3-0 start, their best since 2002. The Giants, who won only three games last year, have started 2025 at 0-3. Dart’s sudden elevation to the starter’s role, displacing veteran 10-time Pro Bowl QB Russell Wilson, is already controversial, including, reportedly, in the Giants’ own locker room.
There seems to be more than the normal amount of pressure on the 22-year-old Dart before he throws his first NFL pass. So why would he want to provoke his opponent, the six-year veteran Herbert, by posting an Instagram photo of the Chargers signal-caller’s reported girlfriend, pop music star Madison Beer?
Viral Photo a Digital Fake
The answer is, he wouldn’t.
But someone did, in what appears to be an attempt to start some kind of a rivalry between Herbert and Dart that goes beyond the gridiron, into their personal lives. The image, which falsely appeared to be posted to Dart’s Instagram account, depicted a broadly smiling Beer on the sidelines at an NFL game with the caption, “Gameday tomorrow.”
What the image was meant to suggest is not entirely clear. The suggestion may have been that Dart is supposedly also dating Beer, or simply that Dart was attempting to troll Herbert before Sunday’s Chargers vs. Giants game. Neither makes much sense and in fact, the digitally altered photo was originally posted by the social media account NFL Drop, which bills itself as “satire NFL & football news.”
Hoax Goes Viral Before Being Exposed
The X (formerly Twitter) post of the fake Dart-Beer post had garnered more than 33,000 “likes” by gametime Sunday after being posted about 26 hours earlier.
For those who don’t follow such things, Herbert was first spotted with Beer at one of her video shoots in Los Angeles back in August. The sighting, and another in which Herbert was spotted with Beer outside a home allegedly belonging to a friend of the singer’s in Redondo Beach, a community about 25 miles south on the California coastline from SoFi Stadium where Herbert plays his home games with the Chargers.
The nascent couple appeared to confirm that they are indeed in a romantic relationship when they were sighted hand-in-hand at a high-end, celebrity-packed restaurant in West Hollywood, California. Finally, at the Chargers’s home opener at SoFi last week, Beer was sighted in a private spectator’s box, presumably cheering on Herbert.
Tough Assignment For Dart in Debut
The idea that the rookie quarterback would attempt to provoke his more experienced counterpart by starting a fight over Herbert’s gal pal never made much sense â especially considering that Dart already has a difficult assignment against the Chargers’ defense.
Los Angeles has allowed only 50 points in the team’s first three games â third-fewest in the NFL. In addition, the Chargers rank ninth in fewest passing yards allowed with 546 and seventh in rushing yards allowed at 284.
At the same time, the Giants have scored only 52 points in three games, sixth-fewest in the league.
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The post Someone Tried to Provoke Justin Herbert, Jaxson Dart Into Madison Beer Fight appeared first on Heavy Sports.