Most of us have opinions on which free agent quarterback the New York Giants should sign as the 2025 starter or as a bridge to a quarterback obtained in the draft. We don’t know whether the Giants want to or will be able to trade up to No. 1, whether Cam Ward is their preference if they do, whether Shedeur Sanders is their second choice if he’s there at No. 3, whether they’d want or be able to trade back into the first round for Jaxson Dart or Jalen Milroe if they miss on Ward and Sanders, whether they like any of the other quarterback prospects enough to take them at No. 34, and whether any satisfactory developmental QB would still be available at No. 65.

That’s a lot of “whether”s.

That makes the signing of a veteran quarterback a pretty big decision for Joe Schoen, who may be looking for work this time next year if he doesn’t get it right. The problem is that the very fact that a veteran QB is available at this moment tells us that there is something undesirable about them, despite the fact that two of them are probable Hall of Famers. Some of those undesirable things are off-the-field concerns, length and/or size of contract demands, etc. Let’s just stick to the football aspect, though, and ask: Today, not at the peak of their careers, what would the Giants be getting with each quarterback and how does it compare to what they had last year?

To get an idea let’s look at advanced statistics for 2024 that Pro Football Focus provides. Some, e.g., PFF grades, are judgment calls by analysts watching film, albeit of every snap; others, though, are hard numbers sorted in more revealing ways than the usual statistics. The list includes Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Joe Flacco, Jameis Winston, and for comparison, the devil you know, Daniel Jones.

Basic passing statistics

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

• If you believe PFF grades, all four of them were better passers than Jones (67.5) last year, though only barely for Winston (69.9) and Flacco (70.7). Wilson (77.5) and Rodgers (76.3) are still very good, but they are no longer elite. Rodgers has graded above 90 in four of his seasons and above 80 in 12 of them, but none since 2021. Wilson has graded above 90 once and above 80 in 7 of his seasons, but none since 2020. Both are still good, but not great. The Giants would not be getting the HOF version of either player. Flacco has graded over 80 only once in his 17-year career (2009). Winston has never graded as high as 80, and his only two seasons over 70 were 2016 and 2017. Jones has graded over 70 twice, in 2020 and 2021 (in 2022 he graded 69.5).
• ALL of them threw more TD passes than Jones last year, even though Flacco and Winston played significantly fewer snaps. Wilson threw 18 TDs to Jones’ 8 and had only 5 INTs to Jones’ 7 even though he played only 37 more snaps. Winston, as per his reputation, had both a lot of TDs and a lot of INTs given his number of snaps.
• Wilson had 24 big-time throws (BTTs) to only 7 turnover-worthy plays (TWPs), by far the best ratio for any of them. Rodgers was somewhat similar but had more TWPs. Jones, Flacco, and Winston all had more TWPs than BTTs. In other words, in Flacco and Winston, the Giants would be getting QBs with similar levels of net passing success as Jones…but with one exception. Jones’ 7.5 yard average depth of target (ADOT) was the second lowest of the five, while Winston (9.7) and Flacco (9.2) were third and sixth in the NFL in ADOT, while Wilson was 15th. With any of those three, expect the ball to be pushed downfield a lot more than Giants’ fans have been used to when Tyrod Taylor was not on the field. (For the record, Taylor’s ADOT was 11.1 and 9.1 in his two seasons as a Giant). Rodgers’ 7.3 ADOT last season was his lowest since 2017, when he was injured much of the year; usually he’s been well above eight. Is he now a checkdown merchant, or was the Jets’ offensive line or offensive game plan to blame?

Passing depth

Deep

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

Wilson and Rodgers are still among the league’s great deep passers when they decide to do it. Wilson’s 97.3 grade on passes of 20+ yards was the best in the NFL among QBs with at least 50 such attempts, while Rodgers’ 92.3 was eighth. Wilson has a reputation for throwing moon balls that are often up for grabs, but the stats belie this notion: His 21:1 BTT:TWP ratio on such passes was excellent, as was Rodgers’ 20:2. Wilson’s 54% completion rate on deep throws comfortably led the NFL (Rodgers was 14th). No wonder Darius Slayton smiled at his presser when asked about Wilson. (For comparison, Tyrod Taylor was 96.0 and 15:2 in these stats in 2023, when he was the Giants’ best QB). Flacco, Winston, and Jones were much less likely to make great deep throws and just about as likely to make turnover-worthy throws when they tried…and they tried much less often than Wilson despite playing a fairly similar number of snaps.

Intermediate

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

Winston actually led the NFL with 27.4% of his pass attempts being to intermediate depths (10-19 yards), and his grade on those (82.7) was 12th in the NFL. He threw past the sticks on 47% of his passes last year, 7th highest in the NFL. Flacco wasn’t too far behind (21.4%, 77.3), fairly similar to Sam Darnold’s numbers last year. Wilson was excellent (89.1, 7th in the NFL) – he just rarely probed that part of the field (12.9%), though he managed 7 TDs. Jones (74.0) was above average but also fairly intermediate-averse, and surprisingly, Rodgers was just as averse and only average when he did (67.4). The biggest thing is that none of them were likely to make big plays when they tried the 10-19 yard range – all of them had very few BTTs (Jones had none) and were about as likely to make a TWP as a BTT when they tried. For context, Joe Burrow had 14 BTTs and 4 TWPs last year while Lamar Jackson had 11 and 1 on intermediate depth passes.

Short

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

Passes less than 10 yards aren’t exciting, but sometimes you’ve got to just move the chains, and when you’re inside the 10, 7 points is better than 3. There are few BTTs at such distances, but there are TWPs (five of them last year from Winston). Rodgers (80.2) was the best of the five, but Jones and Flacco were still very good, while Winston and Wilson were just average.

Pressure

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

No quarterback likes pressure. That’s why Patrick Mahomes didn’t three-peat and why Tom Brady went 18-1 rather than 19-0 in 2007. Not surprisingly, then, each of the five quarterbacks we’re looking at performed below average under pressure last season. Rodgers and Wilson, the two best QBs the Giants are considering, were at least just moderately below average and had more TDs than INTs when pressured. (Rodgers had a remarkable 8 TDs and 0 INTs.) Jones, Flacco, and Winston all performed terribly under pressure. This is one of the things that separates great from mediocre quarterbacks.

Sometimes a quarterback is his own worst enemy, though:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

The absolute numbers in the chart above aren’t of much interest, since the five quarterbacks played very different numbers of passing snaps. The percentages on the right, though, show PFF’s judgment of how often the QB himself, as opposed to the offensive line, was responsible for the pressure. (The percentages add up to less than 100 because I left out those attributed to inline tight ends, running backs, etc.). What we see is that Wilson did the worst job of avoiding sacks, with Jones not far behind, while Flacco was by far the best. In this albeit limited sense, we might say that Flacco has excellent pocket presence while Wilson does not, though pocket presence is about more than just avoiding sacks.

Notice that left tackle was the biggest culprit (31.3%) for the Giants last season – that’s because the Giants’ braintrust had no viable replacement for Andrew Thomas when he got injured.

Time in the pocket

PFF breaks down passing stats by attempts that occur in less than vs. greater than 2.5 seconds. Here are the less than 2.5 seconds breakdowns:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

and the greater than 2.5 seconds breakdowns:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

There are some fascinating differences among the quarterbacks depending on how long they hold the ball before throwing:

• Wilson is excellent (92.1 grade, 13 TDs, 1 INT) when he gets the ball off quickly, and Rodgers isn’t too far behind (86.3 grade, 10 TDs, 5 INTs). The majority of their BTTs occur in these situations.
• Jones was all right (71.8) when he released the ball quickly, but it didn’t translate that much on the scoreboard (4 TDs, 3 INTs). The same was true for Flacco and Winston but with somewhat lower passing grades.
• Winston (71.2) and Flacco (69.8) were just about as good, though, when they held the ball for a long time as when they got the ball off quickly, while Rodgers, Jones, and especially Wilson were noticeably worse.

The verdict

Setting aside the off-field issues with all these quarterbacks, the contract amount and length demands, the desire to play in the New York market, and anything else other than what happens on the field, what we can say about the remaining potential bridge quarterbacks is as follows:

The distinct perception within the NFL seems to be that Rodgers is the most desirable option and Wilson a distant second. Wilson has met with both the Giants and Browns and has walked out of the building without a contract. In contrast, both the Giants and Steelers seem to be ready to have Rodgers sign on the bottom line, and the reason it hasn’t occurred is that Rodgers is on either a darkness retreat or ayahuasca retreat or (more likely) is begging the Vikings to sign him instead.

Their 2024 performance does not support that, though. Rodgers has been the better QB over his career and a more certain Hall of Famer than Wilson. In 2024, though, Wilson was just as good if not better a quarterback than Rodgers was. Wilson still excels in the deep and intermediate passing game, though Rodgers is better in the short game. Rodgers is better under pressure, less likely to get himself sacked, and more likely to make a big play even when he has to hold the ball for a long time.

Flacco and Winston, on the other hand, are at this stage of their careers fairly similar to Daniel Jones. All of them are terrible under pressure. They are all as likely to make a big pass as a terrible pass, but both Flacco and Winston are more likely to try to make a big play downfield. Both are less likely to run themselves into sacks and more likely to try to make something happen downfield even when forced to hold the ball.

Maybe it’s the desire for two years. Maybe it’s the money. But whatever the reason is that the Giants don’t yet have a quarterback, their best shot is signing Wilson. He can still play, and he can play better than any quarterback the Giants have had since 2012 Eli Manning. Let him be the example for a rookie QB, whoever it may be. If not, though, either Flacco or Winston would be a somewhat more entertaining version of Jones but without the running ability and at a much lower cost.

All things considered, if Wilson is willing to sign a contract, the Giants should do it.