LAS VEGAS — The medical diagnosis on the right knee Daniel Jones injured against the Raiders on Sunday is not yet official.
The same cannot be said about the Giants’ 2023 season, which arrived to Las Vegas on life support and departed DOA.
That much is official.
The Giants would like what happened on Sunday in Vegas — a 30-6 loss to the Raiders at Allegiant Stadium — to stay in Vegas. Unfortunately, they had to take it home with them, along with their 2-7 record and starting quarterback who might be out for the season.
If Jones — who left the game after the first play of the second quarter with a non-contact knee injury — is out for the season with ligament damage, it’s not out of the question to wonder whether he’ll play another down for the team that in the offseason gave him a four-year contract worth $160 million.
The Giants’ current projected path, based on the first nine games of this season, has them headed toward having a very high draft pick and a significant roster overhaul, and that very well may mean a new direction at quarterback.
Jones is a virtual lock to be on the Giants roster in 2024, because the salary cap hit should he be cut would be some $69 million. But, if the Giants’ season continues to spiral and they take a quarterback high in the draft, all bets are off as to whether Jones remains the starter.
Jones went down awkwardly without being hit on the final play of the first quarter. During the TV timeout break, he jogged around and threw a few warm-up passes to make sure he was OK.
On the next play, the first of the second quarter, Jones, from the shotgun on second-and-18, crumpled to the ground untouched when he tried to plant on the right leg, and he grabbed his right knee while on the ground.
It was Jones’ last play of the game, possibly his last play of the season and — who knows? — maybe even his Giants career.
It certainly was the last play of any true significance to this lost Giants’ season that has felt cursed from its start.
Without Jones, the Giants have two quarterbacks on the roster: Tommy DeVito, an undrafted rookie whom they were afraid to let throw forward passes in last week’s loss to the Jets and who finished 15 of 20 for 175 yards, one touchdown and two INTs Sunday, and Matt Barkley, who has started seven career NFL games and hasn’t played in the league since 2020.
Jones’ veteran backup, Tyrod Taylor, was knocked out of the Jets game last week with a rib cage injury and was placed on injured reserve this week, meaning he’s not eligible to play for the next three games.
The Giants are in a bad place — a really bad, dark place as they prepare to play at Dallas on Sunday.
Jones is in an even worse place, his future with the team quite cloudy. This was supposed to be the season he was going to break out, Year 2 in head coach Brian Daboll’s offensive system that helped make Josh Allen a star in Buffalo.
Jones was efficient last season, completing 67.2 percent of his passes and throwing only five INTs as the Giants went 9-6-1, advanced into the postseason and even won a road playoff game in Minnesota.
The prevailing thought was the small number of TD passes he threw — 15 — would increase this season in a second year with Daboll and with more skill-position talent around him.
Problem is, it wasn’t working out that way for Jones before his 2023 went sideways with a neck injury suffered in the Oct. 8 loss at Miami, forcing him to miss the previous three games before his return on Sunday.
Jones is now 1-5 as the Giants starter this season with two TD passes and six INTs. Those numbers came when he was healthy, but he had star running back Saquon Barkley for only the first two of those starts before Barkley was lost to an ankle injury.
This was the killer about Sunday: Jones was back, Barkley was healthy and looking sharp and the Giants had both of their tackles, Andrew Thomas on the left and Evan Neal on the right, back in the lineup.
Other than tight end Darren Waller, the former Raider who was just placed on IR this week with a hamstring injury, the Giants’ offense was whole for this game.
That, of course, lasted all of one quarter, with the Giants trailing just 7-0 at the time of Jones’ latest injury.
From there, things got uglier.
And it’s anyone’s guess what’s in store for Jones going forward.