It is getting harder and harder to find people who still think Daniel Jones of the New York Giants is or at least can become a good NFL quarterback. In five seasons in the league, he has failed to show any meaningful improvement in his play, and there is virtually no reason to be optimistic he will finally break out this coming season.
Going into April’s draft, there were rumors that the Giants, who had the No. 6 overall pick, wanted to move on from Jones. But instead, they used the pick on Louisiana State University wide receiver Malik Nabers.
Amidst all the disappointment over how Jones’ career has turned out so far, there is one surprising area in which he has done well.
Douglas Clawson of CBS Sports named him the eighth most clutch QB in the NFL and provided some empirical evidence for that ranking.
“Hear me out before you pound your fist on the table and yell ‘Daniel Jones is eighth on this list?!?!?'” Clawson wrote. “He had very few clutch opportunities through three seasons but he’s been steady lately. He successfully led the Giants down the field to tie or take the lead on 11 of 25 opportunities (44 percent) in the last two years, a top-10 rate in the NFL.”
A lot of Jones’ clutch production came during the 2022 season, when the Giants surprised everyone outside of the Tri-State area by winning seven of their first nine games and then went on to upset the 13-4 Minnesota Vikings in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.
“I’ll be the first one to tell you that his NFL-record five game-winning drives through seven games in 2022 was a fluke. But, while he may not have been landing haymakers and Saquon Barkley was certainly doing his fair share of the heavy lifting, credit Jones for taking care of the ball and adding value with his legs. His five turnovers in the fourth-quarter and OT in the last two years is the same number as Joe Burrow. He also led a game-winning drive on the road in the postseason against the Vikings in 2022.
Can Daniel Jones rediscover what made him successful in 2022?
In 2022, Jones’ production perked up a bit, as he threw for a career-high 3,205 yards while completing 67.2 percent of his pass attempts and posting career-bests in passer rating and QBR.
But those numbers fell hard last season. In his first six games of the campaign, he had just two touchdown passes while throwing six interceptions as New York won just one of those six contests.
He missed three games in October with a neck injury, and when he returned in Week 9 versus the Las Vegas Raiders, he suffered a torn ACL that ended his season. Afterward, Tommy DeVito, a rookie originally from New Jersey who, to that point, had been an afterthought, led the Giants to a three-game winning streak, and for a minute, he was the toast of the New York metropolitan area.
Since Daniel Jones signed a four-year, $160 million contract last offseason, it’s hard to imagine him going anywhere else anytime soon. But if he doesn’t start to produce soon, especially with Nabers by his side, fans could start to turn against him.
Want the latest NFL analysis, breaking news, and insider information? Click here. Interested in reading storylines and analysis about the NBA? Check out our partner NBA Analysis Network.
