So You’ve Overpaid Your QB
Whelp, that pretty much went how I expected it to go. Not utterly terrible, but oof. The Giants are committed to the Daniel Jones experience for the next couple of years.
This Giants season was a blessing that might have also been a curse, time will tell for sure. The new regime did not have faith in Jones. They declined his fifth-year option, essentially betting against him. Reports are that Daboll deliberately made practices harder on Jones to pressure him. It kind of worked! Jones had his best season easily since his rookie year, throwing for 15 touchdowns and running for 7 more. He cut down severely on his turnover problem, becoming one of the safest QB’s in the league after years of being a turnover punching bag. He did all of this behind a sub-par offensive line with one good player on it. He did all of this with one of the worst WR rosters in the league. A guy we picked up from the Bills practice squad halfway through the year easily became his #1 target after 2 games. This was, by all accounts, positive. Jones finally looked mature. He went through his progressions. He made smart decisions. He used his legs effectively. We do not make the playoffs without Jones playing this well in 2022, and we don’t win a playoff game without him, either. It’s hard not to feel hopeful for him after one season of good development.
The problem is this year still wasn’t special in any real way. This is the kind of season you want your developing QB to have in year 2. Not year 4, in a contract season. 15 TDs is not impressive. 3200 yards is pretty low by today’s standards, weak WR corps or not. The only elevated thing Daniel Jones really seems to bring to the table is his value as a runner, which is not something QBs can count on long-term. Jones had a great development year, but it wasn’t elite. Jones was safe with the ball, but he was also very cautious with the ball. He rarely took shots and his yards per attempt was among the lowest in the league. The biggest issue here is that while Jones unquestionably took a step forward, he was stepping out of the absolute muck and is now gloriously average, and nothing he accomplished this year outside his good scrambling isn’t probably replicable with other options at the position that would have more time to mold and cost significantly less.
One of my big worries going into the season with Jones was that he’d play well enough to take us out of contention for a top draft pick, but not well enough to be elite or justify a big contract. He did exactly that. He took us to the playoffs and was easily outmatched when he went up against a team that wasn’t fielding a defense made of drunk ants running away from the ball out of fear. Jones has entered the Dalton Line. The Tannehill Jurisdiction. The Cousins Culdesac. The Garoppolo Exclusion Zone. QB Purgatory. When your QB is just good enough that the chance of you finding a better option is pretty low, so you have to pay him despite not being elite. This is a terrible place to be and traditionally has not produced success.
When is the last mid-range QB, on a big contract, that won a super bowl? 2015 Peyton Manning? That version of Peyton was physically broken and survived on his brain alone and one of the best defenses in history. Stafford? Maybe, but Stafford always flirted with the low end of elite and was surrounded by incredible levels of talent. Jimmy Garoppolo reached a super bowl and almost won it, but the 49ers arguably lost because he wasn’t good enough. Joe Flacco? The answer is probably Joe Flacco. And that super bowl win stuck the Ravens in cap hell thanks to the contract he earned from it. But over the past decade, the formula for competing for a SB seems to generally be two things: stacking the team around a cheap QB on a rookie contract or, more successfully, having elite talent at the QB position. Daniel Jones is not Patrick Mahomes. He is not Joe Burrow. He’s not Herbert or Hurts or even Tua. He’s a distinctly middle-class QB (provided this year wasn’t a fluke). And now he takes up a lot of space on the roster, making it that much harder to fill the space around him with the talent required to elevate him and the team to actual competitors. There is reason to worry about this.
But despite the unfortunate circumstances brought on by the success of the season, the Giants didn’t really have a better option. Derek Carr? A better passer for sure but pretty much also stuck directly in the QB middle class, and would be new to the system. Draft someone? The Giants have too many holes to give up the draft capital to take a chance on someone that high. Jones knows the system, improved within it, and could conceivably get better as the team gets out of the Gettleman hole. The contract is an overpay for what Jones is and what he’s achieved but it could be a lot worse and pretty much every QB is overpaid the first year they get their contract. Mahomes looked overpaid when he got his bag, now he looks almost like a steal. This wasn’t a DeShaun Watson contract, although we can partially blame him for how fucked up the QB market is now, as well as blame him for other things, like being a rapist.
So after all of this, I’m kinda just…neutral. Jones is the guy now for at least 2 seasons. It allowed us to retain Barkley on the franchise tag and either work out a new deal for our best offensive weapon or let him walk next year (which is what I expect, he’s an RB, he has a history of injury, I do not think paying him a lot is a good move). I’m worried how the Jones contract will impact us paying Dexter Lawrence and Andrew Thomas in the upcoming seasons, as well as maybe Xavier McKinney. It will obviously hamper free-agent signings, and our low draft position means we have to hit when we pick to maximize the cheap talent around Jones.
I entered 2022 under the impression Jones was not the guy. I still don’t think he’s the guy, and that this deal is punting the QB problem down the road. But unlike the start of the season, I do have reason to hope and root for him. The Giants could very conceivably get better next year as a team, and Jones could take another step forward if we find our true top weapon and grow him in the offense for another season. Whether I like it or not, I now have to root for Jones to be his best so that’s what I guess I’m gonna do. Prove all the haters wrong, Danny. Including me. Earn those Danny Dollars.
I’ve cycled through all of these methods and a few more, lol. I eventually settled at this:
I trust Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen. They brought us a playoff win with a GARBAGE roster. Whether Daniel is worth this much, or earned this much, it IS the going rate for mid tier QBs, and the Giants had no real other option. It’s not overpaying him when that’s the value the market has assigned him. Sure, it’s an inflated market, but that’s where it’s at. Passing on his fifth year was the right choice at the time, but it did bite us in the butt after how much he improved in Daboll’s system.
Kid is still only 25, and he’s already proved the doubters wrong who said he could NEVER improve on his turnover tendencies. Granted, one season doth not a trend make, but he went from dropping the ball if you looked at him funny to being the least or second least most turnover prone QB last year. That’s impressive regardless of circumstance.
The only sadness is that, yea, it would have been nice if Daniel played the long game and took a smaller contract, maybe with more incentives, so that if he did go off with 5k yards and 35 TDs and Super Bowl MVP, he’d get a much heftier take. BUT. We can’t all be Tom Brady and take chump change so that the team can be better and compete for more Super Bowls so that you can take ALLLL the credit for yourself and be married to a supermodel who makes more than most NFL players and then some only to lose her because you’re Gollum and the football is your Prrrreeecioussssssss. *clears throat* Sorry, my Tom Brady is a Chump reflex kicked in there. If Daboll and Schoen are in, I’m in.
Yeah is where I’ve been at since late afternoon Tuesday. Over the four years it might be a couple million too rich, but that’s what the market is (and honestly midway through it it’ll be a pedestrian haul for a stable QB). I was worried they’d have to waste the franchise tag on Jones so I was mainly ecstatic they were able to deploy it against Barkley instead (if they had committed a long term higher deal for him I’d have been pissed) and they have enough left over to extend Sexy Dexy, at least one of either Love or McKinney and probably pick up a decent ILB in free agency. There are still probably a bit too many holes left to realistically get to the next level off the draft, but between a WR 1, another Corner and maybe an interior OL I trust Schoen to get a long term solution in at least one of those spots.
The one talking point I’m hearing about all this that I don’t really think amounts to much is “Doesn’t signing Jones and tagging Barkley at least partially vindicate Gettleman?” No not really. Even a lot of his critics always conceded that he was a decent scout of talent in a vacuum. It’s everything else about being a GM he was a disaster at.
Kind of my thoughts too. Last year proved good coaching can account for roster issues so if those two are there the giants will probably be fine unless something seriously goes wrong.
They should’ve tagged Jones. Even two tags in a row would’ve saved them money and gave them extra flexibility
I’m glad they did not gamble on that. One, the $32m tag cap hits ALL AT ONCE. They wouldn’t be able to sign anybody else this year without massive tinkering. Two, after this season the cap will rise more, other QBs could sign their own mega deals, and next season you could be looking at a potentially much higher price tag, even if his performance plateaus. Mahomes’ deal was viewed as a psycho mega contract, but the further along we go, it’s looking like an absolute STEAL. Unless Jones falls back off a cliff next year, I think this was the smartest move in a bad predicament.
I’m with you here I did not want him tagged. That just punts the issue to next year and then it happens all over again, and reduces the cap flexibility as you mentioned. Either sign him for more than he’s worth and hope for the best, or let him walk. We did the former and now we can focus on building around him.
We saw the results of tagging a qb twice in a row with Washington doing it to Cousins and it was just another mistake in a long line of mistakes by them
What mistakes have they not made since Snyder bought them honestly.
cowardly punting in the super bowl
Shoulda paid saquan and taged jones
disagree on not having options.
Smartest move was to make Jones a fair offer (25 – 27 mil/yr for 3) and if he refuses go sign guys like Wentz, Mayfield, etc on a cheap 1 year deal so you could continue to build up the team. Then draft next year or hope someone falls this year.
Once a young QBs confidence goes, it is really hard to come back from (Geno Smith excluded); hopefully getting paid helps. Additionally – Daniel Jones’ playing style requires financial security to justify the risk (the Ravens are blowing it with Lamar Jackson).
Think of it this way dave: Josh Allen didn’t really bloom until year 3 and he was on a better team than Jones. It’s not that far fetched that jones would take longer, with a worse team and till now, worse coaching.
I wasn’t sure if my Seahawks overpaid for Geno or not, but they’re getting him for less than Daniel Jones costs, and after a record-setting year, too.
I like your last couple sentences Dave. I really hope Danny does and we see him take the Giants to the playoffs again this season or next. We’re still digging out of the Gettleman hole and will be all season, but I’m hopeful to see the offense with a better Oline and more talent at WR. Of course we did overachieve this year, so we could certainly underachieve next.
I like that you brought up the point about Daboll making practice harder for Jones. That was a good piece of news when we recently learned about it. I like what it shows of Daboll’s mentality that he had one year to improve and test Jones so he was going to do everything he could in that regard.
All in all I’m hopeful for the Giants.
Method 5 also includes acting morally superior on the internet about how emotionally distanced you are
I. Am. Not. Rooting. For. Deshaun. “TheSex Pred”. Watson.
I dont root for Jim Brown, and I wont root for a single team member that is s sexual predator.
Agreed.
Hey Dave,
Take solace in the fact that this is not the no-win situation that has caused the Vikings a world of hurt. You got to choose Danny Derps, you didn’t get stuck with the choice of Case Keenum, Sam Bradford, Teddy Bridgewater, or dumping the truck of money on Kirk Cousins. 84 million reasons and counting, Minnesota…
It’s way too much for the QB that DJ is (and likely will be) but it seems Daboll is the kind of guy who can make it work while building for his chance to get HIS guy. Their roster is NOT good enough now to compete with a young QB unless that QB ends up being a game-changer, but in two years….? I think they’ll have the infrastructure in place to put the next QB in a really good position without sacrificing too much success now. It seems like they’re making DJ the highest-paid bridge QB in the league and putting their faith in the coach of the year.