If this is who Daniel Jones is at quarterback now, NY Giants' season already on the rocks

EAST RUTHERFORD - The greatest fear entering this season for the New York Giants may have been realized Sunday afternoon, and it took less than four quarters in an eventual 28-6 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

It's the question to which no one seems to have an answer, and that's a scary development one week into the third year for Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen, even if critics have been shouting the sentiment for months now, years even.

What if there is nothing left for the Giants to fix with Daniel Jones as a starting NFL quarterback, let alone the leader of an offense that was again held out of the end zone and booed mercilessly for its repeated shortcomings?

Because if that's the case, and Jones looked the part of a player who does not believe in what he is seeing on the field right now, the Giants are in a world of trouble - and the season just started.

You can talk all you want about how the Giants wanted a new quarterback this offseason, how they tried to trade up with the New England Patriots for the chance to draft Drake Maye and how YOU knew Jones was not the guy to lead this franchise back to the playoffs and ultimately the Super Bowl.

Heck, I wrote that column expressing on the last part after the Giants lost in Philadelphia last Christmas.

Here's the truth: the Giants walked off the field with just one loss in the standings Sunday following a bad performance to start a new year; yet everything felt like a continuation of the first quarter in Las Vegas last November, prior to Jones tearing his ACL, when his play just looked, well, way off.

That's where the difficulty lies in all this right now.

The best thing you can say about Jones' performance is that he comes out of this healthy, at least physically, after the neck and knee injuries placed uncertainty on his immediate future. The worry at the moment is whether the beatings he took behind that offensive line last season, the many previous ways the Giants, as John Mara said, screwed him up, have truly stripped Jones of the swagger and confidence with which he played the last time he saw the Vikings.

Until the Giants get a quarterback whose talent can get this team over the hump - without the uncertainty that still engulfs the options on the roster - nothing else matters.

That's what we all gained in Philadelphia on Christmas nine months ago - some clarity, as I wrote, which was the best gift the Giants had received in quite some time.

Along the way, circumstances being what they were, paths to Jayden Daniels, who they'll see in Washington next Sunday, and Maye were blocked. So team brass stuck with Jones, the thought being that he could rediscover the game that Pat Shurmur believed made him special as a rookie, what led Schoen and Daboll to give him that contract worth $160 million many mock now, the Giants could win despite whatever limitations he may not be able to shake.

What's most concerning: it's fair to wonder if the Giants can win at all with where Jones is at right now. They need him to be so much better and there is uncertainty he is capable of doing that.

Asked how concerned he is that there are those who want him replaced, Jones said: "I'm focused on doing my job and playing as well as I can. So I've got to play better, I know that. And I'm focused on doing that."

Jones never looked in sync against the Vikings and defensive coordinator Brian Flores, who typically empties the tank with blitzes from everywhere. The pressure did not come in waves, however. It's as if the Vikings bought into what second-year linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. said in the locker room the other day about the Giants' offense: "Ain't gonna be no matchup."

Jones' throws skipped at the feet of receivers in key spots. He double-clutched far too many times. His accuracy was skittish.

It's everything critics say defines Jones' play, and why the Giants are not going to rebound this season with him at the helm of the offense if he continues to perform like this. Jones completed 22-of-42 passes for 186 yards and two INTs. Malik Nabers caught five passes on seven targets for 66 yards, but felt like there was more out there. The offensive line was not in shambles like its predecessors, even if the five sacks allowed at game's end suggest otherwise.

If this were a one-off, offering such a harsh critique might be unfair. It's only one game. There are 16 more to go.

But for Jones, this is how he played when things went off the cliff last year - before the neck injury and knee surgery.

The cautionary tale for quarterbacks in situations such as these is former Giants quarterback David Carr, who backed up Eli Manning here on the Super Bowl XLVI championship team. A terrible offensive line with the Houston Texans, who selected Carr No. 1 overall in the 2002 NFL Draft, and the lack of a QB support system on and off the field early in his career, wound up shattering Carr's internal clock into a million pieces.

Carr left Houston after the 2006 season a shell of the quarterback that came into town as the one who was picked to lift the franchise four years earlier. The Giants better hope what we watched Sunday from Jones isn't the kind of play that foreshadowed Carr's exit well before the Texas were ready to hand the keys over to someone other than 26-year-old Matt Schaub.

The Giants were booed vociferously throughout the game by the MetLife Stadium crowd, in attendance as the franchise attempted to honor 100 seasons of football as an organization. The greatest of the greats to wear the uniform over the course of Giants' history were lauded, many inside the building to receive the pomp and circumstance as part of the fanfare and festivities.

Phil Simms and Eli Manning were in the house. The Giants have wished since Jones' arrival here that he could be like Eli, overcome early negativity and survive long enough to start winning. They have hoped that, somehow, like Simms' up and down run through criticism and injury, Jones could come out the other end and lead this team with toughness and that level of resolve.

Yet, when it came to the football Sunday, the only ghosts of the past that were supposed to haunt Sam Darnold and the Vikings from his time with the Jets here at the Meadowlands were those that resurfaced from last season when everything seemingly went wrong for Jones in Daboll's second season.

Jones was once again blindsided by Andrew Van Ginkel .

Van Ginkel was with the Dolphins last year, and his sack of Jones resulted in a neck injury. He got to the Giants on Sunday with his new team, the Vikings. He picked off a Jones pass on an attempted bubble screen to Wan'Dale Robinson and strolled into the end zone untouched for a touchdown that put to bed any Giants' hope of mounting a serious second half comeback.

On his confidence in Jones right now, Daboll said: "Overall, we have to do a better job, and that starts with me."

Is Daboll concerned with Jones' confidence?

"We've got to do a better job all the way around," he said. "He'll learn from the tape and we'll be better next week."

Asked why the fans should feel confident that this will turn around, Daboll said: "I can't talk for anybody else. I know what we're going to do. We're going to come back in tomorrow morning, go to work, learn, have a good week of practice and do everything we can do to get ready for Week 2."

The Giants did that last season down the stretch, and credit to Daboll for getting them to do that.

It's never been more clear than now after watching what we did Sunday: if this is who Daniel Jones is at quarterback now, and it doesn't get any better, the Giants' season is already on the rocks one regrettable game in.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: If this is who Daniel Jones is at quarterback now, NY Giants' season already on the rocks