Is Daniel Jones the future?
Is Daniel Jones the future?
The New York Giants examined the autopsy and made the right changes. GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll have them one win from the playoffs. Now, about that quarterback...
This is a head coach who will out-scheme the defense. He’s innovative, creative and there’s a jazz-like flow to his X’s and O’s.
A coach who can develop quarterbacks. Remember the days when Josh Allen was mocked relentlessly? His practice clips were once catnip for a legion of doubters.
Brian Daboll clearly possesses the brass balls needed to finish games. Head coaches can wander aimlessly through 2-minute drills for decades. He’s going for it on fourth down — with conviction.
But the more you chat with the players who work with Daboll every day, the more one theme rises above all else. They genuinely love to play for the New York Giants head man. Nothing is fake or forced. He has a feel for people. The praise is effusive, loud, yet still… vague. OK, Daboll knows this game is not won on a play sheet alone. Human beings decide outcomes.
How exactly does a head coach go about building a team around “tough-minded” individuals, as he likes to say?
Start at the position that will decide the fate of any team until the end of time. Into this 2022 season, the new regime stuck with Daniel Jones on a one-year trial basis. They declined his fifth-year option for 2023, but believed Jones was talented enough to be the starter in Year 1 of a rebuild. Veteran Tyrod Taylor was added for insurance. The Giants were obviously choosing to punt this franchise-defining decision down the road, a fiscally smart maneuver considering fired GM Dave Gettleman left the roster in financial ruins. There was no need to anoint anyone. Not yet. But Daboll also knew this: He needed to test Jones’ mental toughness.
So, when training camp began, he devised a plan. As one source close to the coach explained, Daboll purposely structured practice for Jones to fail and Taylor to succeed.
“He wanted Daniel Jones to deal with the adversity,” this source explained. “He wanted to see how he dealt with it on a daily basis. And he passed it with flying colors. So, I know he loves Daniel Jones.
“He loves Daniel Jones. He loves him.”
Practices are always scripted. Daboll would tell defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale which plays he’d be running when Jones was in the game, this source explains, and had Martindale call defensive plays that’d intentionally work. And when Taylor entered? Exact opposite. Plays were scripted on both sides to set him up for success.
Jones did not flinch. Daboll was thrilled.
“Daboll’s got great X’s and O’s,” said this source. “We know that. But that’s where Daboll is different than the rest of the New England coaches. He’s got a better feel for people. He’s more of a man’s man than the other coaches we’ve seen come out of there.”
The best marriages in sports often have the most unconventional beginnings. The two parties don’t always swipe right simultaneously. Here was Daboll, one of the true architects in Buffalo. A coach largely responsible for the quarterback’s stunning improvement. After grinding as an assistant for two-plus decades, you’d assume Daboll is dying to handpick his own quarterback. To stake his reputation to his guy. He cut his teeth with the likes of Bill Belichick and Nick Saban. Finally, Daboll got his shot. And here was Jones, perceived residue from the Gettleman Era. Damaged goods.
Exactly one year ago, we examined the demise of the Giants with “The Autopsy,” a three-part series.
The scenes behind these walls were far uglier than most expected.
New York needed outsiders to usher in general competence and reinstitute pride. Not family members. Not suck-ups. Not trusted allies with Assholes need not apply signs sitting on their desk when, as ex-scouts noted, that particular GM is the biggest asshole in the room. And certainly not coaches who call quarterback sneaks on third and 9. Enter: GM Joe Schoen and Daboll. Both men played pivotal roles in the Buffalo Bills’ turnaround. Both brought fresh ideas to an organization perpetually stuck in its ways and the product on the field quickly reflected their vision. Whereas the 2021 Giants were effectively on life support this point last season, the 2022 outfit keeps fighting like a bunch of rabid dogs. The Giants are fresh off a 27-24 loss to the 12-3 Vikings. Most weeks, the discrepancy in talent is gaping. Yet a Giants roster with precisely zero business registering a pulse in late December is 8-6-1.
Beat the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday and they’re in the playoffs for the time since 2016 and just the second time since 2011.
Firing buffoons and hiring pros is the first step. Owner John Mara was not pleased with our series at Go Long but then proceeded as if, once and for all, studying an actual autopsy of this failing franchise. Like Minnesota, the Giants ditched a wretched culture for a healthy one. That gives you a chance. They bid farewell to those who rendered MetLife Stadium a torture chamber for any fans willing to waste a perfectly good Sunday. It would’ve be impossible for the Giants to do anything with the roster before addressing this all. Now, it’s about accruing talent. The next decision for this organization may be the biggest.
Quarterback.
Make the wrong call and nothing else matters. Look no further than the other team in New Jersey. GM Joe Douglas and head coach Robert Saleh have done a bang-up job with the Jets’ roster. A defense that finished dead-last in yards and points for the first time since 1975 is one of the NFL’s best in 2022. They drafted legit playmakers in wide receiver Garrett Wilson and running back Breece Hall. But Zach Wilson has been such an abomination — an all-time bust of a No. 2 overall pick — that the Jets could hand him the ’07 Patriots supporting cast and lose. This pick, of course, comes a mere two years after the team whiffed on Sam Darnold at No. 3 overall.
No pressure, fellas.
This spring, Daniel Jones will be an unrestricted free agent and there’s a compelling case to be made on both sides. We talked to those who like Jones and those who do not. Where former NFL MVP Rich Gannon has flashbacks to his own career, another longtime NFC exec sees a team running in place. Either, Jones has proven enough to be The Guy in 2023. Or, this is a classic case of a team needing to challenge itself to be better. To start anew. Even if it means taking one step back to take three steps forward. There’s a good chance Jones has played himself into sticking around at least next season. His mental and physical toughness is not up for debate. As adversity hit New York throughout this season — injuries essentially evacuating the wide receiver room — Jones reacted the same way he did at camp.
With stoicism. With zero excuses. With a hard right shoulder along the sideline. He gives the Giants a chance to win.
Is that enough to warrant being the future?
In truth, that decision is still in Jones’ hands.