I’m neither a fortune teller nor an expert on psychology or mood dynamics, but I can tell you exactly how you should feel about the New York Giants releasing Daniel Jones and I can also relay what will likely happen next in three distinct scenarios.
Over the next few days, we’ll be entertained by those who make a living making people feel poorly about themselves by saying they were right about Jones, the team’s No. 6 pick from the 2019 NFL draft, who elicited a certain kind of reaction from supposed draftniks unable to shake Jones’s eerie similarities to Eli Manning in terms of demeanor and milquetoastness. Working headlines: The Giants were dumb for drafting Daniel Jones and now they cut him after paying him all this money. Or: Daniel Jones was bad! Ha!
Of course, the reality is far less interesting. Jones was a tough prospect to analyze but was willing to withstand a near-constant beating from a poorly built offensive line and wear the burden of replacing the greatest quarterback in franchise history. His best season directly preceded his walk year contractually, which forced the Giants to commit to him at a moderate—when compared to current top-of-the-line salaries—sum. The true damage, one might say, was that taking Jones prevented the Giants from entering the quarterback lotteries of 2020 (Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert), ’21 (Trevor Lawrence, Trey Lance and Zach Wilson), ’23 (C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young and Anthony Richardson) and ’24 (Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams, Bo Nix, Michael Penix Jr. and J.J. McCarthy). This was not on the coaching staff, which elevated Jones in Brian Daboll’s first year to the point of even being considered a long-term prospect worth investing in. This was on ownership trying to stay the course and conjure what they wanted to see instead of what was reality.
So, I feel like that warrants neither anger nor laughter. The Giants took a long position in a quarterback clearly possessing some tools and signing him to a Baker Mayfield-ian contract that would allow them long-term flexibility. The team lost, and now it’s time to get out before it becomes more than it is.
Now, as to what happens next with Jones, here are the most likely paths for him to take:
- Jones pipelines himself directly to the Buffalo Bills. Jones has long been treated by his coaches as a Josh Allen-lite prospect. A little raw and rangy, Jones has movement skills that, when properly utilized, can impact a defense and allow him more open shots at wide receivers. This ability diminished in the latter years of the Daboll regime because Jones was consistently hurt and the offensive line was consistently injured. In Buffalo, he would be a stylistic complement to Allen and injury insurance for the Bills as they increase their divisional lead over the rest of the AFC East amid a promising campaign. Daboll still has many confidantes on Buffalo’s coaching staff and Giants general manager Joe Schoen also came from the Bills. I could also reason, similarly, that the Chiefs could ultimately be a destination if the team views him as a higher-upside project than Carson Wentz. Jones’s offensive coordinator, Mike Kafka, has heavy ties to the Andy Reid tree.
- Jones becomes a promising reclamation project. Mayfield, Geno Smith, Sam Darnold and Malik Willis are among those who have been enveloped by the Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay trees, placed in a more quarterback-friendly system, surrounded by A-plus skill-position talent and set up to flourish. The problem with this conveyor belt of quarterback rebuilds is that it’s hard for many of these coaches to keep their backups without paying an exorbitant amount once they retain a higher market value. So, Jones either joins the Vikings as Darnold insurance, the 49ers as Brock Purdy insurance, the Dolphins as Tua Tagovailoa insurance, or Texans as C.J. Stroud insurance. Two teams outside the McVay/Shanahan sphere of influence that deserve notation are the Broncos given Sean Payton’s near-constant attraction to quarterbacks who have been discarded elsewhere (see: Zach Wilson currently on the roster) and the Detroit Lions, which, amid the most highly-anticipated season in NFL history are hinging on Hendon Hooker as their backup option should anything happen to starter Jared Goff.
- Jones gets thrust into the fold immediately with a bad team and becomes Mitch Trubisky 2.0. The Las Vegas Raiders are a team that, unfortunately for quarterbacks, exists out there. Bad jobs tend to come open in the NFL and attract quarterbacks who don’t want to see their status downgraded after years of being treated as a top dog. This prolongs the almost universal need for a gap year with a good tutor at the position and, in Jones’s case, to get fully healthy after years of abuse and some pretty serious injuries.
In some of these scenarios, the Giants can get both a compensatory draft pick (if he’s signed quickly) and a pat on the head for doing right by Jones. The near future for the former first-rounder could have been bleak, essentially locked out of the facility while his team worries about him tripping on a spilled Kombucha outside the cafeteria and triggering massive injury guarantees for the 2025 season. Now, Jones can start the next phase of his career and, at 27, have the chance to become the quarterback the Giants always hoped he would.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Likely Landing Spots for Daniel Jones Now That the Giants Did the Right Thing.
