It’s another grim morning Monday in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where the topic of interest among Jets fans is not whether Aaron Rodgers can still lead Gang Green to the playoffs, but whether the team can easily get rid of Aaron Rodgers following the season. Not to be outdone, the Giants are doing their own act in the East Coast quarterback malaise dance. disconnecting Daniel Jones after a 2-8 start.
It is not an unreasonable or surprising measure. Jones basically had six years to audition as the Giants’ quarterback, and generally speaking, the less involved he was in throwing the ball, the better the Giants did. Despite missing multiple games due to injuries in four different seasons, the former first-round pick has the fifth-most turnovers (73) of any NFL player since 2019, his first year on the scene. It was time.
And yet, is now the time to applaud the Giants brass for this decision? It’s entirely possible, if not likely, that new starter Tommy DeVito, a fan favorite for his local ties and athleticism in his rookie year, will give New York’s offense a momentary boost. Both DeVito and his reserve teammate Drew Lock possibly offers more advantages than Jonesas are most NFL communicators.
But this raises additional questions: Why did it get to this point? Why did it take the Giants more than half a decade to reach this conclusion? Why did the current regime take almost three years? And, better yet, why isn’t the offensive infrastructure demonstrably better than when Jones first arrived, when Pat Shurmur was still the head coach and Eli Manning was still in uniform? Jones may not have adequately elevated the G-Men in 69 rocky starts, but how often did his team and staff elevate him?
Current head coach Brian Daboll would surely point to 2022, when Jones was taken under his wing, along with a healthy Saquon Barkley, and ultimately to new heights as shepherd of a 9-6-1 playoff team that even defeated the Minnesota Vikings in the finals. way to open the postseason. Everything finally seemed to fall into place at this point, except for the fact that Jones operated almost exclusively as a ball-control figurehead for a running attack. There is nothing wrong with adapting in the name of victory. But the Giants saw this version of Jones as either sustainable or a stepping stone to elite strides as a true passer. Because they soon made him, and not Barkley, the face of the franchise with a long-term contract worth $160 million.
Again, on the surface, the Giants’ decision-making was not illogical: of course, the quarterback is paid, not the running back, even if the latter has special traits that cannot be taught, as Barkley did and continues to do, now with rival Philadelphia. Eagles. And Jones’ inflated salary quickly fell into the range of lucrative quarterback deals. Still, it seems pretty clear now, just a year and a half later, that New York was a victim of the market, overvaluing its own asset at the game’s most important position and bowing to Jones’ financial demands when it had accumulated one slightly. promising season in addition to three really worrying ones.
However, this is only part of this multi-level failure of the Schoen administration. It was one thing to reward Jones for his jump from a battered and unreliable man to a cautious and competent one. It was one thing to believe in his growth potential outside of the regime that drafted him No. 6 overall. It was another to expect Jones’ already questionable arm and decision-making to flourish, much less meet $40 million per year expectations, investing too few resources in proven stars both up front and outside. This year’s lineup has produced at least two potential mainstays in Malik Nabers and Tyrone Tracy Jr., but only after Jones stumbled and tore his knee behind a shoddy line to open 2023.
Daboll can be forgiven in some ways for building an offense so dependent on Jones’ legs and short-area passing, because it seems like he was often compensating for the quarterback’s tools, or lack thereof. However, the Giants are still 17-26-1 under his direction, and that record doesn’t happen by accident, or without some deeper dysfunction when it comes to situational decisions, offensive strategy, etc. Like any team facing massive changes at quarterback (or above), many hands are to blame, and while Daboll specifically advocated for potential replacements for Jones in the lead-up to the 2024 NFL Draft, He also held Schoen’s hand as he sought to reaffirm Jones as his future after the fact.
Speaking of Schoen and Jones’s unfortunate search for replacements, this Week 11 trade to Tommy DeVito also reflects poorly on the men responsible for finalizing said trade, because Jones’ demotion was basically telegraphed for months. Schoen made no secret of his interest in some of this year’s top quarterback prospects, even as he flaunted the size of the contract he had given Jones during HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” which also served as an excuse not to pay him. to the late Barkley as the Giants’ offensive centerpiece. Everyone and their brother knew that Jones wasn’t far from the starting job, unless he and Nabers somehow formed an instant connection between Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase at MetLife. The Giants trotted him out anyway, with nothing more than Drew Lock added as insurance and/or unofficial competition.
It’s ironic, or just appropriate, that Lock, guaranteed $5 million to become Jones’ primary backup, now remains on the bench as the Jones era ends, likely forever. Meanwhile, Russell Wilson, who was available for the veteran’s minimum and reportedly turned down brief overtures from the Giants after New York informed him he wouldn’t compete for the top job, is leading the Pittsburgh Steelers to a potential AL crown. AFC North with a confidence that is close to that. of his greatest stardom with the Seattle Seahawks. Then again, the Steelers aren’t exactly filled with constant questions about the stability of their personnel.
In the end, the Giants might be better off with the unknown of a post-Jones offense. It’s a shame that it took so much time and so much trouble to get here. Because the next steps — at quarterback, on offense, across the board — still belong to the guys who allowed things to get this bad in the first place.
