Broncos’ Sean Payton hoped Giants would make QB change from Russell Wilson to Jaxson Dart ‘long after our game’

For a second straight year, Empower Field didn’t see a Russell Wilson revenge game.

But Sean Payton was evidently hoping for one.

The Giants benched the former Broncos quarterback after just three games this season, turning instead to first-round rookie Jaxson Dart, who continued a stretch of generally strong play with a 283-yard, three-touchdown performance against Denver on Sunday. For three quarters, he gave Broncos coordinator Vance Joseph fits, sliding laterally side-to-side in the pocket to negate a juiced-up Broncos pass rush. And postgame, Payton offered a note of praise to Dart — and, perhaps, a note of shade to Wilson.

“They found a little spark with that quarterback,” Payton said.

“I was talking to John Mara not too long ago,” he continued, speaking of the Giants’ owner, “and I said, ‘We were hoping that change would have happened long after our game.’”

Wilson threw for 3,070 yards with 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions in his lone season under Payton in 2023, and then was benched for Jarrett Stidham at the end of the year. The Broncos, of course, then took on a record $85 million in dead salary-cap charges just to cut bait with Wilson.