The new year rolled in so sensationally for Daniel Jones. His name chanted in a football home that did not exactly throw the door open for him when he first arrived. He came off the field in the late stages of a 38-10 trouncing of the Colts, a playoff berth clinched with the force of his four touchdowns (two passing, two running). The curtain call salute was the warmest embrace of his four-year career.
“I thought he earned it,’’ Brian Daboll, the first-year head coach, said back on Jan. 1. It was a fine time for the quarterback and the coach and, it seemed, the Giants.
That was 10 months and a lifetime ago for Jones, for Daboll and a franchise that cannot fathom it could all go so wrong so quickly.
Jones prematurely ends his fifth season with the Giants having thrown two touchdown passes, having won one of his six starts and having that four-year, $160 million contract he signed in March as life-altering money in his bank account no matter what comes next. When an MRI taken Monday confirmed that he indeed tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee on the last play of the first quarter in Sunday’s 30-6 loss to the Raiders on the grass inside Allegiant Stadium, it became official that Daniel Jones, like so many fortune-seekers visiting Sin City, hit rock bottom in Las Vegas.
There is no reason to believe Jones has thrown his last pass for the Giants. Following reconstructive surgery, he could be ready to play at the start of the 2024 season. There is also no reason to believe his starting job will be there, waiting for him. The Giants are 2-7 and must get through the final eight games of what could devolve into some of the worst football in their 99-year history. Their NFL-low 101 points in nine games and minus-116 point differential might feel like the good-old days by the time the holiday season kicks in.
When Daboll, unwilling to reveal any real emotion to any of this, said “I’ve been in about every situation you can be in in the NFL” he was referring to good seasons and bad ones covering his more than two decades in the league. This season, though, could be one of one when it comes to the bottom falling out.
The Giants are going to need a new quarterback to go with Jones — and not replace him on the roster — in 2024 because they cannot give up on him just yet, not with a dead salary-cap hit of $69 million if they part ways only one year into his contract. It feels inescapable now that they will own a top-five pick in the next draft and that taking a quarterback is more than a possibility. The Cardinals are 1-8, the Panthers are 1-7 (though their pick belongs to the Bears) and the Giants, Patriots and Bears are all 2-7. With Tommy DeVito and Matt Barkley as the two quarterbacks on the roster and Tyrod Taylor out least three more games with a rib cage injury, take a look at the remaining schedule and try to determine where the wins will come.
Having two quarterbacks is infinitely better than maybe having one. The draft is the best place to find one, usually but not always as high as possible. If there is to be an open competition with Jones and a top pick next summer, so be it.
Everything unraveled this season. Every decision seemed to backfire. Personnel moves went bad. Sprains and strains and breaks and tears made them the New York Geriatrics.
Where there appeared to be building blocks there now are question marks. When Justin Pugh, back with the team that selected him in the first round in 2013, after this latest loss said, “We got to come back and do some soul-searching,’’ it was a sad reminder that last season must now be considered an anomaly, a momentary respite from the decade-long trend of losing.
“Yeah man, it’s horrible,’’ right tackle Evan Neal, struggling through a second season that puts into question his worth as the No. 7 overall pick in 2022, said. “Especially how well we were doing the previous year and where we’re at now.’’
The end for general manager Dave Gettleman and coach Joe Judge came amid a torrent of unwatchable offensive football down the stretch of the 2021 season. What has been unsightly so far in 2023 can actually get worse.
“It was a bit of a different predicament then,” wide receiver Darius Slayton, always a keen observer, said of the impending upheaval two years ago. “Our staff was at risk that season. We’re in a bit of a different predicament, different space as a team.”
True. Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen were smash hits in their 2022 debut, but the sequel has been a shabby mess. They need to figure it all out and fix it because they are not going anywhere. Co-owner John Mara knows the fire-every-two-year cycle must end here.
This was to be the season for Jones to live up to the riches he received and for the Giants to stabilize the most important position on the field. Now Jones is done and the Giants are back in the search. New Year’s Day this year will not feel the same as it did a year ago for Jones and the Giants.