How New York Giants Quarterback Decisions Impacted Their Season

ESPN is out with a new report confirming that quarterback Daniel Jones took all the reps in practice this past week, as New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll said would be the case when he spoke with the media the day after the Giants lost to the Philadelphia Eagles at home.

However, the report also included a random sampling of player opinions regarding  whether the team should stick with Jones at quarterback or move on. The sample size backed Jones, but some guys also said they might have felt differently had Tyrod Taylor, now with the Jets, been on the roster.

The Giants’ biggest reason for being at the most important spot on the team is their failure to hold a legitimate competition for the starting job.

Simply put, the team, whose coaching staff always talks about competition and the benefits, didn’t challenge Jones for his job, perhaps thinking that the injuries he dealt with (first the neck and then the ACL) combined with the injuries to the offensive side of the ball were heavily to blame for his struggles last year. 

While it’s true the injuries are beyond anyone’s control, the mixed message that this team continues to send regarding the quarterback position is maddening. As soon as the season ended, general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll declared Jones the starter once he was fully recovered from his torn ACL. 

Yet, as we saw on Hard Knocks, had the Giants been able to swing a deal to move up in the draft order, they seemed all in on taking a quarterback for the future, perhaps planning to let Jones do the heavy lifting this year while the rookie sat until he was ready.

So what does that tell us about the state of the Giants quarterback room?

If the lack of competition was because the coaches felt that there would be no true competition given where Drew Lock and Tommy DeVito were in their respective development, then what was the point of Schoen saying they wanted a backup quarterback in here who could go out and win some games for them?

But back to Jones. It wasn’t his fault that the injuries piled up, that left tackle Andrew Thomas was missing for most of the season, that he didn’t have a No. 1 receiver of Malik Nabers’s quality, that he didn’t play in many games with running back Saquon Barkley due to his own injury issues, and that his offensive line was historically bad.

But to suggest that there weren’t moments when the circumstances didn’t allow the quarterback to succeed is also not true. When Jones did play, he wasn’t consistent or good, save for one-half of football against the Arizona Cardinals. Otherwise, he looked jumpy in the pocket, made questionable decisions, and was flat-out frustrating to watch. 

Some have questioned why the Giants didn’t re-sign Taylor in free agency. They wanted to and reportedly tried, but Taylor had soured on the team after he wasn’t given his job back immediately after coming off injured reserve.

Had the Giants promised Taylor a chance to legitimately compete with Jones for the starting job, would he have returned this year? That’s a fair question to ask, considering Taylor went to the Jets, where unless Aaron Rodgers decides he’s had enough, Taylor will continue to sit on the bench.    

And what about that brief flirtation with Russell Wilson, whom the Giants face against the Pittsburgh Steelers?

One has to wonder if Wilson, who in the past had been rumored to desire New York as a potential destination, skipped on getting a deal done here because the Giants brass made it clear that there would be no competition and that the benefit of signing with them was for a chance to work with Daboll, the quarterback whisperer.

Whatever the case, the Giants put themselves into a bind. They are not out of the playoff race, at least mathematically speaking. And if they somehow win two of their next three games, that could quell some of the grumbling calling for a change at quarterback, at least until after the bye.

But the bottom line is the Giants’ handling of this whole situation has been a head-scratcher, not to mention a dangerous game where if Jones does suffer an injury that prevents him from passing a physical next spring, things can and will get worse.

Speaking of Jones, much has been made of his benching in last week’s 28-3 loss to the Eagles, which has some wondering how much longer the Giants will stick with him.

Daboll’s explanation that he turned to Drew Lock to generate some juice certainly raised more than a few eyebrows, considering that it’s highly unusual for a head coach to pull a starter who is healthy out of the game for a backup.

Unless, of course, there was an ulterior motive.

In that game, Jones was getting hammered by the Eagles defense. He was sacked a season-high seven times and was under pressure 46.7% of the time, well above his season average of 36.4% in which he faced pressure.

Could his benching have simply been Daboll’s way to put Jones at risk behind an offensive line that didn’t perform well to ensure Jones didn’t get hurt and thus trigger that $23 million injury guarantee in his contract?

Daboll and Jones will never reveal what was said between them, but given all the evidence, that’s a very real possibility.

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