EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – There was one play Daniel Jones made in his first career start that convinced the New York Giants and most of their fans that this was their next great quarterback. It came in the third quarter of a thrilling come-from-behind win in Week 3 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2019 season.
Jones, No. 6 at the start of the year, was under pressure from the right side. He easily slipped into the pocket to his left, scanned the field, and fired a bomb outside the platform across his body, 150 feet in the air. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, it was such a hard throw that it only had a 37% chance of success.
But this particular throw was special because the ball flew from the left hash mark deep downfield to the right hash, over safety Mike Edwards and away from cornerback Vernon Hargreaves III. It landed in the hands of rookie receiver Darius Slayton for a stunning 46-yard gain just short of the end zone.
The Giants scored moments later on a touchdown pass from Jones to Sterling Shepard. But it's that throw against Slayton that still resonates a little over five years later, not because of its importance in that game, but because, puzzlingly, it is no longer part of Jones' arsenal. As a rookie, he had 35 close calls in 12 starts. That number has declined every season since.
That earlier version of Jones is gone. The young and promising rookie who threw the ball down the field regularly and without regard for the impact – he threw 24 touchdown passes in his rookie season and hasn't come close since, most of which were 15 in 2022 – hardly exists anymore and doesn't show up at all anymore except on the rarest of occasions, like last year in Week 2 against the Cardinals, when he opened the game and sent out several times against the speedy Jalin Hyatt as the Giants rallied for a 31-28 win.
It appears to be getting late for Jones and the Giants. He is in his sixth season as a starter and must find the right balance between the gunslinger of his rookie year and his more conservative current form. The coming weeks, starting with Thursday's game against NFC East rival Dallas Cowboys (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video), will be about figuring out where the quarterback who passed the ball to Slayton in Tampa Bay went sent – and whether he can show up again.
THIS DANIEL JONES is larger and stronger than the 2019 version – but has more calluses. He is nowhere near as aggressive as his younger self.
“It’s still in the DJ space, and I think there are times where you still see flashes of it,” Slayton said. “But we spent two years on it [Giants coaches] I'm just trying to play defense and [the offense] don't make mistakes.
Daniel Jones on the outlook for this season: “I played more, saw more, learned and improved.” Nic Antaya/Getty Images
Jones averaged 7.8 air yards per attempt as a rookie in coach Pat Shurmur's offense. That's down to just 6.7 yards per attempt from 2020 to today. Even in his best season in 2022, Jones averaged 6.0 air yards per attempt, ranking 33rd out of 33 qualified quarterbacks. It's at 6.2 this season.
Turnovers have certainly decreased as a result (from 1.8 per game in his first two professional seasons to 0.9 per game since), but splash plays have also decreased.
“You don’t want to lose that gunslinger mentality,” Jones said. “I think you want to understand when these opportunities arise and when you should take advantage of them. And you’re always trying to balance that.”
Jones' future is uncertain. The Giants made that clear this offseason when they attempted to trade for his replacement in the draft.
“This is Daniel’s year,” general manager Joe Schoen said on “Hard Knocks” this summer. “It was planned the whole time [to] give it a few years. Is he our man for the next 10 years? Or do we have to turn around and find someone else?”
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Jones struggled in the opener but bounced back with strong performances against the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Browns. His three-week QBR is 52.7, which ranks him 16th out of 31 qualified quarterbacks. He didn't attempt to throw more than 20 yards through the air in the opening game and is 1 of 8 for 28 yards this season. That one completion came when rookie receiver Malik Nabers hit a Browns cornerback in Week 3 Ball wrestled out of his hands and head.
Now it's time to test where they stand against a Cowboys team that beat them 40-0 in Week 1 at MetLife Stadium last year.
“I played more, saw more, learned and improved,” Jones said. “Of course it didn't go particularly well last time, but we're confident, it's a new team. We’re a new team, they’re a new team, and we’re excited about the opportunity.”
THE GIANTS FIRED Shurmur and replaced him in 2020 with Joe Judge, who brought in former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett as his coordinator. This continued until Garrett was fired midway through the 2021 season and replaced by former Browns coach Freddie Kitchens.
They combined to go 10:23 in the 2020 and 2021 seasons. The offense and Jones struggled. This regime tried so hard to unhinge Jones that Slayton believed it had done irreparable damage.
“Every day someone tells you, ‘Hey, don’t turn it around. Don't turn it over, don't turn it over, don't turn it over,'” Slayton said. “You just go out there and try not to turn the ball over. … It's like when they try to preach a certain way of playing, you adapt to it.
“Every day someone tells you, ‘Hey, don’t turn it around. Don't turn it over, don't turn it over, don't turn it over,'” Darius Slayton says of Jones. “You just go out there and try not to turn the ball over.” Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Jones' aggressiveness seemed to tip toward the other end of the spectrum during Judge's tenure, when he became super conservative. The prudence entering his psyche was not the only contributing factor.
Owner John Mara acknowledged when he hired GM Schoen and coach Brian Daboll in 2022 that the Giants had already done everything they could to “screw this kid up.” The boy is Jones. The constant turnover of coaches and offensive coordinators, combined with a poor offensive line and no true No. 1 receiver, Mara said the Giants have done it all.
Jones was shocked. He has been sacked 187 times since entering the league in 2019, the third-highest number in that span. The more hits he takes, the harder it becomes to stay confident in the pocket. This lack of confidence causes his eyes to droop. It speeds up his reading, or worse, he doesn't manage to finish it at all, even when there is time. He settles for the checkdown too quickly. According to an offensive line coach familiar with Jones, these could all be consequences of the situation.
JONES' FUTURE HINGES directly on his performance this season. He's due $30 million next year, but the Giants can get out of the deal with a manageable $22 million in dead money.
His contract contains an appropriate exit clause after this year, just in case. It will take a wonderful rest of the season before the Giants want to come back.
They need to see Jones play better than he did in 2022, which earned him the four-year, $160 million contract. That year he threw 15 touchdown passes and five interceptions and scored another seven points. The Giants signed Jones with the intention that he could improve and become a top-five quarterback, with the hope that he could develop into a 30-plus touchdown player. That's what the team needs to see, or some version of it, for him to be the long-term answer at quarterback.
“The advantage is that I have great confidence in our employees and Daniel's work ethic [Daboll and Jones’] “The relationship will continue to grow and Daniel will continue to improve,” Schoen said after signing Jones. “If he’s at his bottom right now, I’m really excited to see what his ceiling is going to be.”
The league's perception of Jones appears to be markedly different from improved vision.
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“Maybe a bridge starter,” one NFL general manager said of his value as a free agent if the Giants released him after the season. “It’s probably a situation where he’s competing for the start.”
The $30 million he's due next season would be a “relative bargain” if he's a good starter, the manager said. That makes it possible to sign a quarterback and keep Jones.
“They weren’t afraid to draft [a quarterback to compete with Jones] “This year,” said the manager. “Why should that change?”
That probably wouldn't be the case as long as Jones continued to play well. The Giants insist his confidence isn't an issue. The quarterback said the same thing. The results of the last two weeks on the road against Washington and Cleveland seem to confirm his belief.
Daboll spoke last week about a study he commissioned from his analytics team on throwing the ball 20 yards downfield. They concluded that winning teams did this 3.5 times per game earlier this season. The Giants threw four deep passes against the Commanders and four last week against the Browns after having zero in Week 1.
Maybe they are moving in the right direction. The Giants spent all spring and summer moving the ball downfield. Your quarterback will have this new message drilled into his head.
“You want to get your shots when you get them,” Jones said. “I definitely try to do that when I can.”
“You don’t want to lose that gunslinger mentality,” says Daniel Jones. Nic Antaya/Getty Images
Daboll is considered a quarterback guru. He's running the offense this season and now has three games under his belt as a playcaller with Jones. Daboll dictates the “shot” plays and expects his quarterback to execute them.
“Certainly if he has the right looks, I think he can do it,” Daboll said.
Jones has been doing that for the last two weeks, although without much success. Part of it has to do with the opposition's defense. The Giants had the sixth-most passing snaps against the Cover 2 defense at 18.5%. The Cover 2 defense protects the back end of the field with two deep safeties and asks the quarterback to opt for underneath or intermediate routes.
Jones looks down, only to see the safety in the depths. In week 1 he panicked when it wasn't there, hesitated and showed too much indecision. Daboll noticed after Week 2 that Jones was more decisive in his reads. After what he's been through over the last five years, it remains a work in progress.
All of this could make it even harder to envision Jones regaining the aggressiveness of his 2019 rookie self. Or even an improved version in New York.
“If you went to driving school and all they showed you were videos of fatal car accidents,” an NFL assistant said, “you would probably be a careful driver, too.”
