EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - For those hoping for New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen to announce a decision regarding the immediate future of starting quarterback Daniel Jones, it looks like you’re just going to have to wait until next week for head coach Brian Daboll to make his intentions known.
But if you were also hoping for Schoen to admit that it’s been the play of Jones, the sixth year quarterback, that has been holding the team back, he didn’t quite go there either.
“It’s everybody. Everybody’s got a hand in this,” Schoen said when asked about Jones. “I know being the quarterback and offensive coordinator, head coach, a lot of people like to point to those guys in general.
“Daniel’s played some good games, and there’s some games where maybe he’d like to have some throws back or do things differently, but in general, it’s not one individual or one situation that keeps occurring, unfortunately.”
But then Schoen added, “We’ve got to find a way to get over the hump and make plays at critical times of the game, whether it’s red zone, third down, or getting off the field on defense, or tackling on punt coverage and not allowing a punt return for a touchdown.”
The quarterback is not responsible for blown assignments–dropped passes, missed blocks, and poorly run routes. But every play starts with him touching the ball. If the Giants are going to be pass happy, then every pass play needs to consist of precise throwing, hitting the right receiver in stride, not missing wide open guys and not forcing his offensive line to hold blocks indefinitely.
Jones, for what it’s worth, currently has a 43% success rate as a passer, which means he’s picking up at least 40% of the needed yardage on first down, 60% on second down, and 100% on third and fourth down.
That mark is the worst among the four NFC East quarterbacks, behind Commanders rookie Jayden Daniels (47.5%), Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (47.1%), and injured Cowboys starter Dak Prescott (45.3%).
What’s also among the worst in the division is Jones’s 17.2% pressure rate allowed, which leads that group as the worst in the division.
Schoen’s response to a question about having any regrets about how he handled the quarterback situation in the offseason in which he professed all offseason long that Jones was going to be the starter once he was cleared to return from his ACL injury, was quite telling.
“I mean, no,” he said, appearing to struggle with wanting to say more but reluctant to do so, perhaps out of concern that he might say something that he’d regret.
Even with Wilson, who in the past has been rumored to desire a stint in New York, available?
“When people are free agents and you go through the process, you do what you do. If it's a good fit, then sometimes they come. If they're not, you can't make them. So, again, you go through the process of free agency, whether it's any position. And that's how free agency works. And players decide where they want to go and what they want to do. But some of that stuff is out of your control.”
With that opportunity to add a proven veteran to the mix now well in the rearview mirror, all eyes are on what Schoen and the Giants do next at quarterback. It’s widely believed that the team will bench Jones, whose $23 million injury guarantee looms large, for either Drew Lock or Tommy DeVito, though Schoen said that any such decision would be a “football decision” rather than driven by finances.
“We’re 2-8. Everybody needs to, including myself, look in the mirror and see how we can do things better,” he said after getting another question about Jones.
“I understand you guys want to ask about Daniel and it’s the quarterback position. That’s what comes with the territory specifically in this market. It’s not all on one person.”
No, it's not, just as the decision that will be made probably won’t come down to one person. But if Schoen truly believes that the team isn’t that far off, as he claimed several times during his nearly half-hour media session, it seems painfully clear what needs to be done when the team returns off the bye.
