It’s over. Do. What else should you see? It’s been five years of the same excruciatingly painful reality slapping the Giants in the face almost every week. You’d think that would be enough to make them realize that the one season of basic skill was nothing more than an accident, but here they are.
Monday night, against the Pittsburgh Steelers, they trotted Daniel Jones like their quarterback. And unsurprisingly, he lost the game to them. Twice he turned things around in the fourth quarter with a chance to score and tie the game with the ensuing two-point conversion. The last one on a miserable interception sent six feet over an open field Devin Singletarythe head.
Final score: Steelers 26, Giants 18.
It’s time for the head coach Brian Daboll doing what he flirted with a week ago against Philadelphia. The Jones era with the Giants must end. East Drew Lock the correct answer? Tommy DeVito? It’s not clear.
But it’s time for New York to admit that Jones is clearly not right.
You may lament the Giants’ decision to not have a contingency plan in place for a Andrew Thomas injury until you’re blue in the face. This is a wild case of roster mismanagement. General manager Joe Schoen told everyone who would listen that the tackle’s absence derailed their 2023 season. Knowing that, having to go out of their way to add Chris Hubbard from the San Francisco 49ers practice squad because your backup, Josh EzeuduWas it so bad that you had to abandon it after a week? Ridiculous.
But this is not a question of line. This is not a bad tackle by the defense. These are not coverage failures. This isn’t another special teams collapse. This is not the horrible display of discipline evident by the 11 penalties accepted.
It’s that, for four quarters, Jones, who is now an almost unbelievable 1-15 in prime-time games, went out there and once again showed anyone with a pair of ‘functional eyes and a basic understanding of football that he wasn’t him.
Darius Slayton released the left sideline. Jones hesitated, threw late, high and a big Minkah Fitzpatrick the blow interrupted the play. Malik Nabers broke free on an angle, Jones threw a pass that forced him to stop and Nabers dropped the ball. No quarterback is perfect. Even the best have games like this. However, with the game on the line, Jones was at his worst.
In less than eight, linebacker Bobby Okereke hit the ball from the Steelers quarterback Russell Wilsongot his hands on a scrum and jumped on it, giving the Giants the ball at the Steelers 34 with just under five minutes left. Four plays later, Jones lined up with the shotgun on third-and-7.
The Steelers’ world runner TJ Watt exploded off the line, past the tackle Jermaine Eluemunorstripped Jones and got him back. Watt is one of the best in the game. There’s not much you can do to slow him down. Daboll told reporters after the game, however, that Jones was supposed to give the line time to move and shake Watt. Instead, he broke it early, leading to the sack.
Give Daboll credit for his honesty, but that’s about as much under the bus as a player can be thrown
The Giants still got the ball back after a Steelers punt. Jones led New York to the Pittsburgh 35. This time, Watt and Alex Highsmithwho sacked Jones twice and hit him six times, was on the sidelines. Jones took the shotgun blast and opened Theo Johnson and Singletaire. He panicked, didn’t put his feet down, sailed his boat over his head and Bishop Hat removed it.
It was a miserable room, but that was to be expected. Again: This is the player Jones has shown in all but one of his seasons. And even in the year that earned him his much-scrutinized extension, he was 9-6-1, 3,205 passing yards, 15 passing touchdowns and seven more rushing.
As for that contract: the Giants were right to award him that after this season. They couldn’t find anything better on the trade market, in free agency and didn’t have the capital to move up in the draft. CJ Stroud. So they bet on its potential. They hoped he would continue to evolve with Daboll. It was a good decision on Schoen’s part. But that didn’t happen. So it’s time to move on.
Technically, the Giants have already tried to do this. They did everything they could to move up in the draft this year for the No. 3 pick. There, they would have selected the UNC Drake Maye. Daboll was heard on “Hard Knocks” preaching his desire to go for Jayden Danielsnow a star for the Washington Commanders. When those efforts proved futile, they decided to go back with Jones.
Although this is the third year of this offense and he has more work with (Nabers) than ever before, Jones seems to have regressed. His arm strength is nothing like it was at the beginning of his career. He regularly misses deep throws. Even his long throw to Slayton on the game’s first possession (a 43-yard gain) is probably a touchdown if he succeeds more. You couple that with the inaccuracies and bad decisions that have plagued his career and you get a deadpan quarterback that this team isn’t going anywhere with.
Daboll saw enough in the Giants’ blowout loss to the Eagles. He benched Jones in the second half looking for a spark. After the game and during the week, he stressed that Jones was his quarterback “moving forward.”
Pittsburgh was only ahead in schedule. The Giants are stuck in reverse as long as they continue to bring Jones out as their signal-caller.
Change is long overdue.
