New York Giants have no choice but to move on from Daniel Jones

We have more or less reverse-engineered game day coverage at Big Blue View, with ‘Kudos & Wet Willies’ running shortly after the game and this post coming the day after. Too bad the New York Giants can’t reverse-engineer a disastrous 2024 season.

Maybe even the last six or seven seasons.

I have supported Daniel Jones — when I have felt he has deserved it — for much of the past six seasons. I understood why then-GM Dave Gettleman drafted him No. 6 overall in 2019. I understood why Joe Judge stuck with Jones. I understood why Joe Schoen, rather than moving on from him after the 2022 playoff season, signed him to a contract with two years of guaranteed money rather than blowing things up and starting over. I have understood, through 10 games of this season, why head coach Brian Daboll has continued to trot Jones out as the Giants’ starting quarterback.

I won’t, though, understand if Jones is still the quarterback when the Giants return from their bye to face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Week 12 at MetLife Stadium.

Daniel Jones just isn’t good enough.

As I wrote in Sunday’s ‘Kudos & Wet Willies’, Jones’ “limitations, and the ways in which they can hold back the Giants, though, were clear” during Sunday’s humiliating 20-17 overtime loss to the Carolina Panthers; a loss, incidentally, that allowed the Giants to wrest the title ‘Worst Team in Football’ from the clutches of the previously woeful Panthers.

Bad ball placement led to several balls that could/should have been completions being incompletions or worse. I am thinking specifically of an early throw to Wan’Dale Robinson that led to a punt, and the fourth-quarter red zone throw to Tyrone Tracy that resulted in an interception. That was one of two red zone interception Jones threw on the day, the second consecutive week in which Jones has reverted to being a turnover machine at crucial times in the red zone.

There was a throw to Malik Nabers that sailed waaaaay over his head, killing a drive. There was a skipped throw to an open Wan’Dale Robinson. A dangerous throw behind tight end Theo Johnson. I could probably go throw by throw and find more, but I don’t want to put myself through that.

If this was a bad day for Jones, or if Jones was a rookie quarterback with an anticipated learning curve you would look at the positives — the second-half, the final regulation drive, the toughness he displayed — and feel good.

Jones, though, is not a rookie.

ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky spoke, or posted, the truth that even the most ardent Jones supporters have to recognize six years and 70 games into Jones’ NFL career:

There are calls for the crucifixion — OK, that’s dramatic — the firing of Daboll.

That’s understandable. Fans want their pound of flesh when a team is failing, and the national media sees an 8-19 record since the start of the 2023 season and thinks there is no way the head coach can remain beyond this season.

Daboll might not survive ‘The Wreck of the Giants’ 2024 Season’.

I have my issues with the decisions Daboll makes at times. I think every writer and every fan disagrees with the head coach sometimes. One of those issues, by the way, is not the third-and-1 flea flicker on Sunday.

We have been snickering at Daboll all season for calling quarterback sneaks on second-and-1 or third-and-1. I wasn’t crazy about the play call, but I’m not going to be disingenuous and rip the coach for it.

It should have worked. Malik Nabers and Wan’Dale Robinson were both wide open 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Jones received a good pitch back from Devin Singletary. Left tackle Jermaine Eluemunor could have been better on the play, but Jones had enough time. For some reason, Jones was slow to reset and prepare to throw. By the time he did all that, he was swallowed up by Carolina defensive end D.J. Wonnum.

Daboll has done the best he can with the quarterback he was given, and that he has had no choice but to ride with since the Giants failed in their pre-draft pursuit of Drake Maye.

If the Giants were 5-5 through 10 games, which they probably should be, would anyone be calling for Daboll’s head?

Probably not.

It is pretty easy to argue that the Giants would have that 5-5 record with better quarterback play.

• In a Week 4 20-15 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, Jones put up an excellent 29 of 40 for 281 yards stat line. But, he missed three deep throws and failed to get the Giants into the end zone despite engineering six drives of eight or more plays.
• In a Week 6 17-7 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals Jones led an offense that scored just one touchdown against what was the worst defense in football entering the game. This is what I wrote in giving Jones a ‘Wet Willie’ for that game:

There were plays to be made against the less-than-stellar Cincinnati defense that didn’t get made. There was also one ugly, costly red zone interception on a ball Jones tried to throw away while getting hit by ex-Giant B.J. Hill that can’t happen.

Jones was 22 of 41 for 205 yards with an interception. Having Malik Nabers would have helped, sure. And head coach Brian Daboll fell on his sword by taking the blame for the poor offensive showing. A lot of it, though, had to do with the quarterback.

Again, the numbers didn’t look terrible. Jones, though, made a costly mistake and didn’t make enough big plays. There was also this:

Sunday against the Panthers would mark the third game where I think it is not unfair at all to say the Giants would have/could have/should have won with better quarterback play.

Those wins would have them at 5-5.

Drew Lock is not the long-term answer at quarterback. Neither, for that matter, is fan favorite Tommy DeVito. But one, most likely Lock, has to be the starter in Week 12 against the Buccaneers.

The Giants being 2-8, the necessity of making sure they do not wind up on the hook for Jones’ $23 million injury guarantee next spring, and the fact that the already-angry home crowd at MetLife Stadium would like savage Jones’ every move if he were to start against the Buccaneers makes it that way.

I don’t know who or what the 2025 answer will be at quarterback for the Giants. A highly-drafted rookie like Cam Ward or Jalen Milroe? A veteran placeholder like Sam Darnold? Some combination of placeholder/prized rookie draft pick?

I just know that we have arrived at the point in time where the Giants have to finally, mercifully, turn the page.