Which woeful New York football team will win first?

This NFL season began with promise in New York.

The Giants had the makings of a stellar defensive unit, aided by the addition of edge rusher Abdul Carter, the third overall pick out of Penn State who looked ready to wreak havoc.

The Jets cleaned house after their disastrous Aaron Rodgers experiment. With a new coach, new front office, and many of the same talented players that had previously convinced the franchise to go all-in on a creaky 40-year-old quarterback, they had at least undergone a vibes transfusion.

But as the schedule gets into Week 4, we're still waiting to see which New York team will win a game first.

The Giants' 0-3 start has set off alarm bells. Despite having a very good vantage point from which to observe the Jets' experience of bringing in a past-his-prime veteran quarterback, the G-Men went ahead and signed Russell Wilson anyway. Wilson is only 36 - Tom Brady was just getting warmed up at that point - but without the mobility of his youth, he's been severely limited on an NFL field. The Seattle Seahawks gave up on him despite his status as a franchise icon. The Denver Broncos gave up on him despite owing him an eye-watering pile of guaranteed money. The Pittsburgh Steelers gave up on him despite a playoff appearance and his cheap price tag.

The Giants gave up on him after three games.

They now turn to Jaxson Dart, the 22-year-old rookie out of Ole Miss selected 25th overall in April's draft. Dart's got a name that sounds like the main character in a spy thriller and is said to have all the tools: big arm, good wheels, all that fun stuff. But there is also the glaring fact that head coach Brian Daboll gave Wilson the starting job just a month ago. The rationale seemed pretty clear: Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen were working with pretty short leashes, and they were relying on Wilson's veteran competence to help them avoid yet another slow start.

Mission decidedly not accomplished. Wilson was awful in losses to the Commanders and Chiefs. He was good in a thriller against the Cowboys ... except for the part where he threw a brutal interception in overtime that cost his team the game.

Dart will remain the starter for the rest of the season, Daboll suggested, and the range of possibilities is basically endless. Dart could be a marked improvement on Wilson, or he could look like an untested rookie who wasn't really thought of as franchise-quarterback material prior to the draft.

At least the Giants can point to the Jets as proof that drafting a quarterback early in the first round is no guarantee of success either. The Jets whiffed on Sam Darnold, and then on Zach Wilson, and after the Rodgers-related mess, they settled on Justin Fields as a stopgap. A Heisman finalist at Ohio State who was drafted in the first round by the Chicago Bears in 2021, Fields is a great runner whose ceiling is significantly lowered by the fact that he's not very good at throwing the football - specifically, at throwing it to members of his own team.

A decent start in a loss to Pittsburgh was followed by a lopsided loss to the Bills in which Fields was also concussed. The Jets then turned to Tyrod Taylor, a 36-year-old on his seventh NFL team. He was pretty good in a loss to the Buccaneers, but coach Aaron Glenn is left with a couple of less than inspiring choices at quarterback.

Although Fields is still relatively young at 26, New York would most likely need to go all-in on a rush-heavy attack to give him any chance of sustained success as QB1. It's not exactly the modern approach. Taylor is almost certainly a more competent passer, but he takes a bunch of sacks - and after 15 years in the NFL, almost all of them as a backup, he seems highly unlikely to suddenly morph into a quality starter.

All of this leaves the Jets and Giants with big questions at the one position where you really don't want to have big questions. The good news is that both franchises have winnable games on the horizon.

The Jets play the spiraling Dolphins this week, another 0-3 squad that looks like one of the most dysfunctional teams in the league this season. They also have the Panthers in Week 7. The Giants host the unbeaten Chargers this week, which is not ideal for a rookie's first start, but then they get the Saints in Week 5. If they don't win that one ... yikes. It could be a while.

But those are worries for later. The Jets might be treading water, but the Giants are at least starting something new. The Dart era has arrived, sooner than expected. What could go wrong?

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.