To make his case to continue as the team’s quarterback beyond this season, Jones needed to be as good or better than ever in 2024. So far, he hasn’t been.
Six years. That is how long New York Giants fans have been arguing about what Daniel Jones is, what he isn’t, and whose fault his faults are.
The debate has grown old, tiresome, annoying, and probably pointless.
After six weeks of the 2024 NFL season, I think it is also mercifully entering its final phase. I think the sand in the hour glass of Jones’ time as the Giants’ franchise quarterback is beginning to run out.
The Giants’ appearance on ‘Hard Knocks’ last offseason made it clear that the front office was ready to put a Jones-less future in place. Drake Maye would be a Giant today if the New England Patriots had not asked for the sun, the moon, and the stars for the No. 3 overall pick and — not getting it — decided to stay put and select Maye for themselves.
Yes, GM Joe Schoen said during the offseason that “this is the year for Daniel.” That did not mean anything other than that 2024, because the Giants could not put a successor in place, Jones would get one final chance to show the organization that he deserved to be the quarterback beyond this season, when the guaranteed money in his four-year, $160 million contract runs out.
Before the season began I was often asked what it would take for Jones to convince the Giants that he should be their guy beyond this season, that they should forego the quarterback market and just keep trying to add pieces around him.
My answer was that Jones needed to be at least as good as he was in 2022, when he helped the Giants win a playoff game and had the lowest interception percentage in the NFL during the best season of his career.
In fact, he probably needed to be better than the 2022 version of Jones.
The Giants, in my view, did not sign Jones to that contract because 2022 Jones was enough. They signed him to that deal because good quarterbacks are not easy to find, and 2022 Jones made the Giants think there might still be untapped upside if they continued to work with him.
Clearly, Jones is not meeting the “as good as 2022” bar. Forget the “better than he’s ever been” dream.
I dislike the “quarterback won-loss record” measuring stick. Football is a team sport and so much more than quarterback play goes into the outcome of games that I don’t think it is always fair to attach a win or loss to every quarterback start.
That said, quarterback is the most important position in sports. Quarterbacks touch the ball more often and make more decisions than any other player.
There are games that, boiled down to their most basic elements, come down to which team gets the better quarterback play. Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals was one of those.
Cincinnati has Joe Burrow, one of the game’s best quarterbacks. In a game where the Giants defense limited the high-scoring Bengals offense, Burrow made three winning plays.
- There was his 47-yard touchdown scramble on third-and-18.
- After the Giants knotted the game at 7-7 in the third quarter, a scrambling, desperate Burrow dropped a dime on Ja’Marr Chase while running to his left for a 33-yard gain that led to a field goal to quickly put Cincinnati on top.
- In the final moments of the fourth quarter, the Bengals faced third-and-12 with 2:12 left to play. The Giants needed a stop to try for some late-game magic. Burrow, again scrambling desperately to his left, hit a toe-tapping Erick All for a 29-yard gain and a back-breaking first down. Two plays later, Chase Brown run 30 yards for a game-clinching touchdown.
Jones?
- A disheartening, costly red zone interception on a first-and-10 at the Cincinnati 14-yard line. Jones was hit as he threw by Bengals’ defensive tackle B.J. Hill, resulting in an easy interception for Germaine Pratt. Jones threw late, and tried to air mail it out the back of the end zone. Both mistakes he shouldn’t make in his sixth season.
- Jones went 0 for 4 on throws of 20+ yards beyond the line of scrimmage, including a couple of plays where receivers clearly had separation.
- The Giants converted on 3 of 5 fourth-down chances. The two times they threw in an effort to convert, Jones misfired.
Burrow made the big plays that helped his team win. Jones made a costly play that contributed heavily to the loss, and missed his opportunities to erase that mistake.
In 2022, Jones wasn’t statistically prolific. He never really has been. We can rehash the debate over all of the non-Jones reasons for that, but that is not the point. The point is that Jones is not often the difference-maker in Giants victories.
He led four fourth-quarter comebacks and five game-winning drives in 2022. He played brilliantly in a playoff victory over the Minnesota Vikings. He has not, though, been that player often enough in his career.
Jones’ audition for the role of franchise quarterback has gone on this long largely because of the circumstances around him. Three head coaches. Two GMs. Ownership recognizing that the organization had neither the proper coaching nor the requisite amount of talent around Jones for him to fairly show what he was or is capable of.
In 2024, Jones has the best circumstance of his career. He has an offensive line that is giving him adequate protection. He has Malik Nabers, albeit Nabers has missed the last two games. There are other good receivers joining Nabers. Jones doesn’t have Saquon Barkley, but there is a good veteran back in Devin Singletary and an exciting rookie in Tyrone Tracy. Jones has Daboll calling the plays.
Yet, Jones still has only six touchdown passes in six games, a pace that would have him throw fewer than 20 touchdown passes for the fifth straight year. The Giants are 29th in the league in points scored this year, averaging 16.0 per game. They just scored 7 points against a team ranked 31st in the league in defense, one that had not held an opposing offense under 10 points in 75 games.
If Jones were a rookie, you would say he had shown you enough this season to make you excited about the future. He is, though, a sixth-year player with 65 career starts. What we’re seeing just isn’t enough to justify a $41.6 million cap hit in 20205 and a $58.6 million cap hit in 2026 to carry him as the starting quarterback.
I don’t agree with the argument that the Giants should not have given Jones that contract after the 2022 season. What real choice did they have? Jones, a quarterback beloved by ownership, had just played the best football of his career and led the Giants to their first playoff victory in more than a decade.
There was no clear path to an obvious replacement. Schoen gave Jones a contract with the fewest number of years of guaranteed money he could, hedging that something like what has transpired since would happen. The GM gave himself the quickest out he could negotiate. So, here we are.
I have argued that Jones played solidly from Weeks 2-5 this season, because I believe he did. The Giants won two games and lost two games over that stretch. I would argue that Jones contributed to the victories, but did not win the Giants those games. I would also argue that he was not the reason they lost those two games during that stretch, but that a play or two from the quarterback might have changed the outcome. Against the Dallas Cowboys, a game in which the Giants kicked five goals and lost 20-15, Jones was 1 of 6 on passes of 20+ yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
This is the problem the Giants face with Jones. He’s not terrible. Some want Jones removed from the lineup immediately to avoid his injury guarantee kicking in. That may happen before the season is over, but not yet. Jones is, for now, the best quarterback they have. As frustrating as he can be, a look at their career arcs and statistics tell you Jones has clearly been better than Drew Lock. As long as Jones is healthy and the Giants believe the season is not lost, he will be the quarterback.
Jones is just not a quarterback who will lift his team, at least not often enough. You can’t look at Jones and believe that when things are not going well, he will make a play to get the Giants back on track or put them in position to win.
Jones, as head coach Brian Daboll said this week, does “everything he can to be as good as he can be.”
That’s why you will never hear the coaching staff or the players say bad things about Jones. He probably works as hard as anyone in the Giants’ building. He never embarrasses the franchise with any of his actions. He puts his body on the line, never shying away from taking hits. Even when he probably should.
It just doesn’t seem like enough. It feels like the Giants are stuck in this endless loop of mediocrity that isn’t going to change until they have a quarterback who can lift them out of it.
The 2024 season was always likely to be a transitional year for the Giants. It is the final year of guaranteed money in Jones’ contract. Jones was, and still is, likely to have to be something we really haven’t seen during his career in order for the Giants to go forward with him.
I said on the ‘Valentine’s Views’ podcast the other day that it feels like the Giants are “killing time” with Jones at quarterback right now.
They are doing the best they can. There is no guarantee that whoever comes after Jones will do better. Increasingly, though, it feels like the Giants will just be running in place until they try.
