Daniel Jones has found a new critic in the form of Carl Banks. The Giants legend linebacker and current radio analyst has thrown his hat into the ring and has suggested some eye-opening possibilities behind the quarterback’s sudden regression in 2023.
After a 2022 campaign that saw Jones and the Giants reach heights few would have expected, Jones and the Giants floundered to a 2-7 start to their 2023 campaign, the seventh of these losses saw Jones tear his ACL which ended his campaign after a prior neck injury during October.
Owners of the 6th overall pick, with a team that may be “done” with his services, does Carl Banks have any leg to stand on as far as Daniel Jones critics are concerned?
Carl Banks Suggests Daniel Jones was “Shell Shocked”
Daniel Jones has gone through three head coaches and one clean-out of the Giants’ front office in five seasons. And all throughout this period, Banks has suggested this week, the repeated hits Jones has taken have made him “Shell Shocked”:
“And the other thing . . . is his mental state, right? He’s been beat up and I don’t have any doubt that he’ll go out and he’ll compete,” Banks said on the Bleav in Giants podcast. “But when the lights come on and the bullets start to fly, is he PTSD? Is he traumatized? Is he having flashbacks? Right? Is he shell-shocked because he took a lot of punishment and it impacted his judgment in the game?
Banks would continue by noting that given enough time being beaten down behind an offensive line that has been less than stellar at best, Jones may now have built up a response that sees him shutting down and making bad judgments once the offensive linemen fail their assignments. This is a statement that reveals that to some degree, the Giants front office has failed Jones not once, but several times, in failing to acquire enough offensive line pieces to protect him.
It hasn’t all been bad, but Joe Schoen is running out of time to fix things.
Carl Banks Believes Giants QB Daniel Jones Getting Hit Too Much Could Have "Shellshocked" Him https://t.co/HnQkrixNmc pic.twitter.com/NFreEvO3At
— Bleav (@BleavNetwork) March 19, 2024
How Bad Has the New York Giants Offensive Line Been?
Taking an analytical look through the Giants over the past half-decade, coincident in timing with Daniel Jones’s career commencing in Week 3 of the 2019 season, shows that the former Duke product has been sacked 179 times in five seasons. Despite drafting both Andrew Thomas, who has gone on to become one of the league’s highest-paid in the position, and Evan Neal, there is still much to be desired with the Giants offensive line.
The 2023 season, which Banks claimed caused Jones to become shellshocked, featured repeated turnover through injuries. Thomas was not on the field for much of the early portion of the season, which featured both of Jones’s 2023 injuries, and others on the line could not avoid the injury bug as the year wore on. Tommy DeVito, who saw action in as many games as Jones in 2023, took even more sacks than Jones had.
Can Daniel Jones Be Fixed?
It is hard to tell if there is time for this current Giants coaching staff to fully solve the problems Daniel Jones has continued to face. Having brought in Drew Lock and spoken to Russell Wilson during Week 1 of Free Agency, the Giants remain insistent Jones will start Week 1 of 2024.
But with that 6th pick, one that may be too far down to grab a rookie quarterback, the team from East Rutherford has to get it right, or face another round of regime changes–their second in four seasons, and fifth substantial coaching change since Tom Coughlin left the organization at the end of 2015.