Since joining the New York Giants from Auburn as a fifth-round selection in the 2019 NFL Draft, wide receiver Darius Slayton has played for four head coaches and with 12 starting quarterbacks.

Slayton doesn’t know who will coach the Giants in the 2026 season. But he knows who the quarterback will be.

“Jaxson Dart will be here for a long time,” Slayton said after New York concluded its season with a 34-17 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. “He’s talented. He’s young. I mean, I think any coach that would come here would be wise to invest in him and try to bring him along because he has all the potential in the world, and I think that it wouldn’t be wise to to pass him over.”

The Giants selected Dart from Ole Miss in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft. He became the starting quarterback in the fourth game of the season and went the rest of the way, except for two games missed because of injuries. Dart completed 216-of-339 passes for 2,272 yards with 15 touchdowns and five interceptions and ran for 487 yards and nine touchdowns on 86 carries.

“I think he got better as the games went on,” Slayton said. “I think, period, he did a great job protecting the football. You know, very few turnovers, especially for a rookie quarterback. You’re kind of booked for 10 turnovers, at least, when you have a rookie quarterback back there, but he did a great job protecting the ball. And then as he went on, well, he got a little better protecting himself. But he operated the offense well, and I think he grew a lot over this year.”

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The Giants fired Brian Daboll 10 games into his fourth season as New York’s coach. Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka finished the season as interim coach.

In Slayton’s rookie season, Pat Shurmur was the Giants’ coach, followed by two seasons of Joe Judge.

“You think about it,” Slayton said on Monday. “I’ve been here seven years, and it’s about to be going into my eighth year. I’ve had four head coaches. So literally half my career, there’s been a new voice. But that’s kind of the nature of the beast. And, you know, we’ll do our best to embrace the next guy in here and I’ll try to prevent him getting replaced, whoever he might be.”

Slayton had a suggestion on the type of coach that would work out for the Giants.

“Somebody that’s Tom Coughlin-esque, I feel like,” Slayton said. “He brought a lot of things to this organization. I think it’s no mistake why he won when he was here was his personality and the way he went about his business. And I think it takes a certain type of person to be a head coach in New York. It’s a tough job. Obviously, comes with a lot of scrutiny. But I think you need to have a certain disposition to get the job done effectively. And I feel like he probably embodies a lot of the qualities that we require.”

Coughlin served as New York’s head coach from 2004 through 2015. The Giants won the Super Bowls for the 2007 and 2011 seasons under Coughlin’s guidance.

New York has reached the postseason once in Slayton’s time with the team. The Giants finished with a 4-13 record after defeating the Las Vegas Raiders and Cowboys in their final two games.

“We just do that earlier in the season in games, we’ll find ourselves where we want to be at the end of the year,” Slayton said. “… We have young talent, and, at the end of the day, all we need to do is finish games better earlier in the year to win those. We did that this week and last week. We just had to carry that over earlier in the season.”

In four of his seven seasons, Slayton has been New York’s leading receiver. This season, he finished second to wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson, who had 1,014 receiving yards. Slayton had 37 receptions for 538 yards and one touchdown in 14 games. Slayton had the fewest TD receptions and the second-fewest receptions and receiving yards of his NFL career after he signed a three-year, $36 million contract in March.

“It was definitely up and down for me a good bit,” Slayton said. “I think I played well in some spots, played not my best in some other spots, and, you know, I just got to get back to it this offseason. Get healthy, get my mind and my body right, and I’m confident I’ll be ready to go next year.”