The Draw Play

In April of 2019 I was sitting in the basement of a cheap AirBnB in some rinky-dink northeastern Pennsylvania rural neighborhood getting blasted off disgusting gas station liquor with some other guys at my friend’s bachelor party. The draft had just started, and those of us who cared about football turned it on. We watch as the Cardinals draft Kyler Murray after all the handwringing about Josh Rosen for months. We laugh as the Raiders draft some guy named Clelin Ferrell 4th overall. Mike Mayock’s first NFL draft pick was a disastrous attempt to outsmart everyone else. The Giants had the 6th pick and Josh Allen (the edge rusher) was available. They picked Daniel Jones, the QB out of Duke. One of the other guys there, a Browns fan, turned to me and sorrowfully said “I’m sorry bro”. We turned the TV off and went to play more drinking games.

Jones was a mistake from the moment he was picked. It was a weak QB class outside Murray, and most pundits rated Dwayne Haskins as the next-best option. Most Giants fans wanted Haskins. Haskins would fall to 15th, more or less on target with where he was projected. Jones was projected as a late first-rounder at best. If he didn’t play the most valuable position in the sport he’d have likely dropped to the 2nd, 3rd, or even later rounds. He was nothing special at Duke. He had the physical attributes, he seemed like a good guy, but he was turnover-prone and not very good. He was not deserving of the 6th pick. GM David Gettleman would be quoted as saying he fell in love with Jones because of a good drive at the Senior Bowl. Every red flag that could fly about how stupid this pick was could be seen from miles away.

Jones was doomed. He came onto a bad team to replace a washed-up Eli in his final year, playing for lame duck head coach in Pat Shurmur. Despite this, Danny had a few moments. His debut game against the Buccaneers was incredible as he led a massive comeback. It’s funny now, looking back at that game. I watched it in a sports bar with the very same friend who’s bachelor party I had been attending when he was drafted. We watched Jones pull off a miracle and for a moment, maybe Jones could actually be the answer. That Bucs game, his first game as a pro, would turn out to be his best game as a pro. He threw for 2 touchdowns and ran for 2 more. Me and my friend won a bar raffle for a free pizza on our next visit. Things looked optimistic. I never got a chance to use that free pizza coupon as the bar would close for renovations a month later, set to open back up in spring. Thanks to Covid, it never happened, and that bar is now a gated-off empty lot full of weeds.

Jones had what could be called your average flawed rookie season. He threw for just over 3k yards and for 24 touchdowns and 12 picks, but he also had a league-high number of fumbles. There was reason for hope. Outside the fumbles, which turned into a meme for him, he played better than expected. But the Giants still sucked that year and Pat Shurmur got the boot.

Whatever promise Jones had that first year was snuffed out under the next regime: Joe Judge and OC Jason Garrett. They managed to fix his fumble problem by turning him into a scared turtle. Jones was a bit of a gunslinger in his rookie year. He threw a pretty good deep ball and played loose. Garrett’s ultra-conservative run-focused offense behind a bad offensive line and without a real weapon to throw to led to a much regressed Danny. In October of 2020 Jones made the play that would ultimately define his career. He broke free on a designed run against the Eagles and ran for 80 yards only to trip over his own damn feet 10 yards from the endzone. It didn’t matter that the Giants ultimately scored a TD anyway: that play became the iconic Daniel Jones moment and honestly, an iconic New York Giants football moment for the despair era in which they now exist. So close to something only to pratfall on their own face as everyone laughs.

In 2020 Jones also showed his other major flaw: injury problems. He missed a few games. In 2021, the situation only got worse and he was on IR by December. Despite the fact that Jones was not good, the team got unwatchably bad with him out, putting forth an embarrassment so ugly that Mara decided to clean house. Judge was gone. Gettleman was gone. The Giants made what appeared to be a pretty good series of moves. Joe Schoen came in as GM, having been part of the now-flurishing Buffalo Bills. He brought over Brian Daboll, the highly rated offensive mind that was also behind Josh Allen’s development. Danny was more or less seen as a dangling thread. The 2022 QB draft class was maybe the worst class in recent history, so finding a replacement wasn’t on the table quite yet. They gave Danny a year to prove he was worth it. They declined his 5th-year option and made practices hard on him. Nobody expected him to last. None of us had a problem with them declining the 5th year option at the time but in hindsight, that safe gamble is the main reason we ended up in this mess.

The Giants had a good season in 2022. It was a gaggle of close wins against a weak schedule but damn was it fun while it lasted. Daboll got the most out of Jones by designing plays around his strengths and not forcing him to make hard decisions. He also got a lot out of him as a runner. Jones had his best overall season as a pro. 15 passing touchdowns, but 7 more as a runner. They got extremely lucky and faced an even more fraudulent Vikings team in the wildcard round and Jones lit up the worst playoff defense I’ve ever watched. To anyone who knew ball, the season was obviously a mirage. But to the average joe Giants fan, the Danny Kool-Aid tasted delicious. I never personally bought in and I was worried about it, but even I could see there was reason to have optimism. It was his first season under what appeared to be competent coaching and he played at least average ball. It…might be okay? Had to hope so, because fuck, now he’s getting paid. We are stuck with him for 2 years minimum now. Nothing left to do but hope he gets better.

The 5th year option decline meant that Jones and Barkley, the two most important players for the offense and the biggest reason for offensive success in 2022, were now both free agents. Had they accepted the 5th year option, this mess is avoided. What made it worse was that Barkley kept declining all the Giants contract offers. This forced Schoen to use the franchise tag on Saquon when I firmly believe they wanted to use it on Danny. So now the Giants are stuck: pay Jones, who has the leverage from his good season, or let him walk and find a bridge QB/draft one. The fanbase now foolishly has faith in Jones. Jones knows the system. If they kick Jones to the curb, the team is basically rebuilding right after a playoff win, and despite that being the right move (especially in hindsight), that was never going to happen. Mara would not allow that shit. Mara seemed fond of Danny. They paid Jones. It honestly wasn’t that bad of a contract. Was it overpay? Of course. He’s a Quarterback, there’s no way it wasn’t going to be too much. But it wasn’t obscene money, it was high mid-tier money, and it was really only for 2 seasons before the Giants could reasonably cut loose.

The deal looks much worse in hindsight because everything crashed and burned so hard in 2023. Pretty much every move the Giants made blew up as poorly as possible. Saquon’s relationship with the team soured after being franchised and in his opinion, lowballed. After an injury-riddled and underwhelming season there’s no way he was staying a Giant. Despite what is happening in Philly this year I still believe letting him walk was the right move. He wouldn’t be doing this on the Giants. The Giants would be getting mocked for overpaying an RB on a roster with a ton of problems. On the Eagles he was a luxury pickup for a much better roster already pre-built to accommodate his strengths. I hate seeing it work out, but I don’t begrudge any of the decisions that led him there. He made the right move for himself and the Giants made the right move for the franchise. The Jones contract was obviously a mistake, but it doesn’t happen without Barkley refusing to sign in 2023 and if the Giants aren’t low in the draft order because of 2022 so Bryce Young and CJ Stroud were off the table as replacements. The free agents that year aren’t special either. Derek Carr isn’t much better and probably costs the Giants more if they go that way. They decided to give Danny a chance after he finally showed promise. It failed. It’s very funny to laugh at now, but I still see the logic in all the decisions that led us to this point.

Jones ends his tenure as a Giant as a bit of an anomaly. QBs aren’t given much time to develop anymore. If you don’t look like you can save the franchise within a couple seasons, you get dumped on your ass. Look how many QBs got drafted and given a chance in the past 6 years and how many got discarded already. Dwayne Haskins. Kenny Pickett. Justin Fields. Mac Jones. Zach Wilson. Desmond Ridder. Davis Mills. Trevor Lawrence did get paid but he’s on a bad trajectory right now. Tua was pretty close to being given up on too before McDaniel saved his ass. Daniel Jones got 6 seasons to try and prove something. He almost did. He got some people to buy in. He was just never good enough.

I was never a Danny truther. I thought he was a mistake from day one and David Gettleman was a moron. But despite thinking he wasn’t the answer Danny was still easy to root for. As far as personality goes, Daniel Jones is an S-tier guy and exactly what you want from a franchise QB. He was never anything but incredibly professional. He worked his butt off. He never once threw anyone else under the bus. He was always courteous with the media and took every criticism, fair or not, right on the chin and stood back up. Maybe he lacked a little bit of swagger, but that’s okay. He made it a choice to be as refined and dignified as he could be because of the media market he played in. The man got shat on for 6 years outside a few fleeting glimpses of respect and he never complained. When it became clear his time had finally come, he gave an emotional speech where he called playing for the Giants a dream come true. You don’t have a soul if you watched that interview and didn’t feel for him. I hold no personal hatred for Daniel Jones as a person whatsoever. I cheer him on. I don’t know where his career goes from here, but I’ll be rooting for him and wish him the best. He just wasn’t good enough. Even with all the flaws and failures that surrounded him during his time here that undoubtedly contributed to his struggles, sometimes guys just don’t have the juice.

The Jones benching and release seems to have been taken poorly by the team and it increasingly looks like the house might get cleaned at season’s end. I’m fine with whatever happens at this rate. After 6 years, I’m honestly just happy something is changing. Farewell, Danny. There’s a part of me that will miss you and remember you. Please don’t throw any more passes for my football team.