Daniel Jones' time with the New York Giants might be up sooner than later

Quarterback purgatory is never a good place to be.

When you or your predecessors in player personnel have acquired a quarterback via any means, and that quarterback keeps bumping his head on his own ceiling, it’s a problem. Especially in today’s NFL, where the prism of the game is seen there more than ever, coming up short at the game’s most important position puts your entire franchise in a holding pattern that can set that franchise back and cause a lot of people to worry about their jobs.

The Daniel Jones situation with the New York Giants has reached a fever pitch when it comes to this unfortunate phenomenon. Jones, selected with the sixth overall pick in the 2019 draft out of Duke, has had all the opportunities to show that he can be a legitimate franchise-defining quarterback. And for all kinds of reasons, it hasn’t happened. Head coach Brian Daboll was brought on board before the 2022 season due in large part to how he helped turn Josh Allen from a raw prospect to a top-tier weapon as the Buffalo Bills’ offensive coordinator. And the team has certainly invested in talent around Jones, though not always wisely.

Jones came off a 2021 neck injury that caused him to miss the Giants’ last six games that season, and played decently in his first season under Daboll with a game-manager stat line (356 completions in 534 attempts for 3.642 yards, 17 touchdowns, six interceptions, and a passer rating of 92.0. He was solid in the Giants’ wild-card win over the Minnesota Vikings, and less so in Big Blue’s divisional-round loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. It seemed at that point as if the Daboll-Jones combination would start to reap some benefits.

Didn’t happen. Jones’ supposed breakout 2023 season was marred by bad line play, receiver issues, the sense that play-caller and quarterback weren’t always on the same page, and the torn ACL that Jones suffered in November that ended his season six games in. In those six games, Jones completed 108 of 160 passes for 909 yards, two touchdowns, six interceptions, and a passer rating of 70.5 – the lowest of his career to date.

The 2024 offseason had the Giants wavering between confidence in the man they gave a four-year, $160 million contract extension the year before, and the certainty that it is just about time to look beyond the present to, quite possibly, a more potential-filled future. Jones’ contract is really more of a two-year deal that starts to vest heavily if he’s on the roster at the start of the 2025 league year.

So, when the Giants’ brass told Jones that he would see some draftable quarterbacks in the building before the 2024 selection process got underway, that had to be a bitter pill to swallow. In the end, outside of signing Drew Lock to be Jones’ backup, the Giants held fast to the post and went with what they had, with the implicit understanding that anything less than severe improvement from Jones would have the team looking elsewhere.

"Listen, I'm still happy we gave him that contract because I felt he played really well for us in '22," Giants co-owner John Mara recently said . "Last year he got hurt and, let's be honest, when he was playing, we weren't blocking anybody. So let's give him a chance with a better offensive line and some weapons around him and see what he can do."

Well, THERE’s a ringing endorsement.

In any event, Daboll has one more year to make a large vat of the finest chicken salad possible. How can he and his staff go about making the most of whatever it is that Daniel Jones brings to the field?

Let the big dog eat… to a point.

The Giants have essentially neutered Jones as a deep passer, and it’s been bizarre to watch over time. Deep throws were a strength from his rookie season of 2019, when he completed 16 of 54 passes of 20 or more air yards for 498 yards, nine touchdowns, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 74.2. In 2020, he upped the ante to 20 deep completions on 43 attempts for 652 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 132.5 – the NFL’s best among quarterbacks who took at least 20% of their opponents’ snaps. Jones never had a deep pass rating lower than 86.8 until his injury-abbreviated 2023 season, when he completed just two deep passes on 11 attempts for 89 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 60.8. In comparison, Tyrod Taylor and Tommy DeVito (!) were both better and more efficient deep throwers in 2023.

Jones’ Week 2 performance against the Arizona Cardinals was his only really good game of the 2023 season; it was also the only one in which his offensive line didn’t add a Three Stooges element to the party. Unsurprisingly, it was the only game in which Jones’ potential as a deep passer was on point. This 58-yard post to rookie speedster Jalin Hyatt showed a bit of that old sauce.

“You’ve got to execute those opportunities when you have them and take advantage of them,” Jones said via Ty Dunne’s Go Long SubStack on August 1. “We’ve got guys who can get behind the defense and the offensive line’s done a good job of protecting upfront. So my job is to understand that situation — when we have it, hit it. And when we don’t, or something goes wrong, being able to handle those situations, too.”

Now, with sixth overall pick Malik Nabers added to Jones’ receiver corps, there is more potential for explosive plays – especially to the boundary. But within that ability to take advantage of defenses, the team must scheme Jones’ targets open as much as possible.

Make it simple.

There are quarterbacks who can bend reality in and out of the pocket, making preposterous no-look throws on their third reads and hitting receivers in stride all over the field. Jones isn’t one of those quarterbacks. That isn’t a professional death sentence as long as his coaches understand his limitations, and work accordingly around them. By default, Jones tends to be a late processor, so his play-designers need to design plays where he has an easy first-open read, and can progress from there. Longer-developing routes that choke off his easier options do nobody on this team any favors.

“I think it is always a balance,” Jones said in late July regarding the “No negative plays” mantra. “We want to get the ball downfield and make big plays, but another big focus of ours is getting the ball out quickly and getting the ball in space, avoiding sacks, avoiding going backwards, and staying in good down-and-distance situations that help us execute. I think that is something we've stressed. Playing quarterback is about making a good decision and getting the ball out quickly.”

This incomplete pass to tight end Darren Waller in Week 3 against the San Francisco 49ers proved the theory; Jones may believe he’s the kind of quarterback who can make amazing throws against tight coverage, but the proof is in the tape.

To be the man, you've got to beat the man.

When Daboll became the Bills' offensive coordinator in 2018, one of his first and most important tasks was to give Josh Allen answers against man coverage. It certainly helped when Buffalo traded for Stefon Diggs before the 2020 season -- at that point in his career, Diggs was a one-man man-beater. But Daboll also created opportunities for Allen to singe aggressive coverage without letting his young quarterback go too YOLO out there. 32 of Allen's 63 explosive completions in the 2020 season came against man coverage. It was not an accident.

Last season, Jones had just two explosive completions against man coverage. Both came in the Giants' Week 1 game against the Dallas Cowboys, and only one was within structure -- this 24-yard play by receiver Isaiah Hodgins that started off as a simple outside slant against Dallas' preferred Cover-1. Of course, with the 2023 Giants being the 2023 Giants, the Cowboys were already up 40-0 at this point, and Hodgins fumbled the ball away to end the drive.

For Daboll and Allen back in 2020, it wasn't as if the Bills were doing revolutionary stuff schematically to get their receivers open against man -- it was a lot of slants and drag routes, some one-man go routes, and a selection of mirrored concepts to give Allen easy reads to either side. Receivers could then make gains after the catch. It was all designed to give Allen confidence in the system, and it clearly worked.

Now, Jones has two speed receivers in Hyatt and Nabers, and Nabers brings a singular determination after the catch, so there's no excuse for the lack of an uptick in explosive plays against man coverage. Nabers ate against man coverage in every way you can imagine with Jayden Daniels as his quarterback at LSU in 2023.

At best, Daniel Jones is a short-term compromise.

Daniel Jones wasn't Brian Daboll's choice. Daniel Jones also wasn't the choice of current Giants general manager Joe Schoen, who took that job in 2022. The decision to give Jones the contract extension the Giants did was reflective of the team's vision of his highest potential, but just as much the fact that it was important to be able to cut and run if things didn't work out.

The best possible scenario for all involved is for Jones to stay healthy, and work within a system that allows him to do the few things he does well and consistently. Five seasons in, we have a pretty good idea what Daniel Jones is and isn't.

This is, after all, a quarterback who had a DVOA of less than -10.0% in each of his first three seasons. The only other quarterbacks to match that ignoble feat in the history of FTN's play-to-play efficiency metric? Jeff George (1990-1992), Rick Mirer (1993-1995), Tim Couch (1999-2001), and Sam Darnold (2018-2020). All high first-round draft picks who never lived up to whatever hype they had generated.

“You forget about it sometimes because he looks normal out there,” Daboll said in early August of Jones’ return to form from the ACL injury. “But, for what he's done eight months, or eight and a half months, whatever it may be, and to come back and take every rep. He feels good. I've talked to him about different things. Hey, ‘scrambling, make sure you feel comfortable out of the pocket, make sure you feel comfortable moving up in the pocket. Making plays with your feet’. He’s been right on track. It’s pretty impressive to me in terms of – you have that injury, this is where he's at, this is what he's looked like physically. I’m proud of him.”

All well and good, but soon, the bill will once again come due for Daniel Jones. The Giants can't be blamed at all if they'd rather rid themselves of the entire exercise.

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise indicated).