Daniel Jones: One “Giant” Question Mark
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On August 17, the New York Giants lost their Week 2 preseason game against the Houston Texans. While the final score of 28-10 doesn’t look too bad, along with the fact that this game is pretty much meaningless, New York is in a lot of trouble.
Their biggest issue at the moment? Daniel Jones.
Jones is now 17 months removed from signing a four-year deal worth up to $160 million. However, with an “out” on the contract after the first two years, it is primarily a two-year, $82 million contract. With that kind of money going towards the team’s quarterback, New York would hope that Jones is their “franchise guy”. After what everyone saw during the regular season last year, along with Jones’ first start in this year’s preseason, the now sixth-year quarterback looks anything but.
On the Giants first drive of the game against Houston’s starters, Jones almost threw an interception, which was luckily dropped. On their second drive, Jones made one of the worst decisions of his career which resulted in a Jalen Pitre pick-six. New York was backed up inside their own 10-yard line, when Houston’s pass rush got to Jones. Instead of throwing the ball into the turf, or better yet, throwing it out of bounds, he “pump faked” and then thew it directly to Pitre. In fact, a safety would have been better than what Jones decided to do.
On their third drive of the game, after the pick-six, Jones then proceeded to throw another interception. In what would’ve been a beautiful 33-yard play from Jones to sophomore receiver, Jalin Hyatt, the ball was underthrown.
Jones would go on to lead a touchdown drive in the second quarter, which incorporated a 44-yard pass to Darius Slayton, but that was against Houston’s backups. As he continued to play the entirety of the first half, and proceeded to make a few nice throws, nobody could ever forget how bad he looked against true competition. When facing the Texans starting defense, Jones looked as bad as ever.
The final stat line for Jones against the starting defense in the first quarter:
2/6, 18 passing yards, zero touchdowns, two interceptions (one pick-six)
As Jones’ performance caused chaos on social media with different fans’ reactions, the Giants quarterback had a different view on his first game back since his ACL tear in Week 9 of last season. This is the full quote from Jones:
“I think we overall got some things going in the second quarter and executed and moved the ball. I was happy with how we responded in the second quarter. I feel good physically. Felt really good and excited to be out there. Grateful for all the people who have helped me get to this point. All the doctors and trainers and the staff we have here who have helped me. It was fun to be out there. Didn’t start perfect, like I said, but we got going and I feel good physically.”
Head Coach Brian Daboll did not go the same route as Jones during his postgame press conference.
“Tough to win a game when you turn the ball over five times. Start with that. So, one, decision back in our end zone, give up a score, one-on-one, Stingley makes a good play, and then turn it over there in the second half, so don’t give yourself much of a chance when you turn the ball over. Obviously, it’s something we need to improve on so that’s what we’ll try to do... [Jones] moved to the left and made a poor decision, backed up.”
Once again, this is only a preseason game so it means little to nothing in the grand scheme of things. However, this isn’t a backup or a rookie quarterback that’s making these kind of mistakes; it’s a paid, sixth-year quarterback.
For a player who has the fifth highest cap hit in the NFL this season, many would think that they would look at least capable of playing at a high level. Jones is starting to show the opposite ever since he was paid $40 million per year. It was easy for fans to give him the benefit of the doubt last season and even earlier in his career, as he was cursed with a terrible offensive line and weapons. With the starting offensive line looking much improved, as seen against the Texans, and Malik Nabers showing his talents early on, those excuses are now meaningless.
So far throughout Jones’ career, he has been day and night. He either looks like the future of this team, or he looks like he doesn’t deserve a spot on an NFL roster. Right now his stock is at an all-time low. With the Giants first regular season game being played in three weeks, it’s time for Jones to figure something out for good, because if he doesn’t perform, the front office is going to look somewhere else. Neither the head coach nor the general manager wants their quarterback’s terrible play to affect their own job security.
Week 1 against the Minnesota Vikings should tell everyone exactly what they want to know about Daniel Jones. For now, at least, he remains a huge question mark for the Giants.