During a recent press conference, New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen offered a ringing endorsement of embattled quarterback Daniel Jones.
“I have faith in Daniel as our starting quarterback,” Schoen told reporters at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis.
There’s always the possibility that Schoen is throwing public support behind a player who is now the face of the Giants’ franchise. However, with New York slated to select No. 6 overall in the 2024 NFL Draft, and the potential that Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy could be on the board when the Giants are on the clock, it seems difficult to envision Schoen’s commitment to Jones being ironclad.
During the Combine, the feeling around the league is that McCarthy impressed meetings with teams, after passing for 2,991 yards with 22 touchdowns to just four interceptions in 2023.
“I think there’s a gap between Caleb [Williams] and the rest of these quarterbacks,” former NFL Executive of The Year Randy Mueller told me. “But, you better put J.J. McCarthy in that top group of quarterbacks, because he may have the biggest ceiling of all of them.
“He crushed it in Indy, and he actually crushed it on film, it’s just taking certain people a while to catch up and realize.”
It remains to be seen whether the Giants are in the quarterback market, but at minimum, the organization must find a stopgap option because Jones might not be available Week 1 of the 2024 season.
Can Daniel Jones Win New York Giants a Super Bowl?
Ultimately, Schoen’s mission is to deliver a Super Bowl victory for the New York Giants.
Whether that is with Daniel Jones, J.J. McCarthy, Justin Fields, or some other quarterback to be named later, adding a fifth Lombardi Trophy to the franchise’s legacy is all that matters.
Schoen, at least publicly, stopped just short of hitching his Super Bowl wagon to Daniel Jones.
“That’s the ultimate goal for everybody, to win a Super Bowl,” Schoen told reporters. “So, we want to win a Super Bowl. It’s not one position; you’ve got to build a good team. You’ve got to have surrounding parts. There’s a lot of good quarterbacks that haven’t won Super Bowls. So, you’ve got to have a good team. It’s not just the quarterback position.
“I understand your question, but I think you’ve got to continue to build a team around the quarterback. It’s an important position, but I think you’ve got to build the pieces around him on both sides of the ball and in all three phases.”
The Giants committed $160 million, over four seasons, to Daniel Jones prior to the 2023 campaign.
To this point in his career, before suffering a season-ending Achilles injury in 2023, Jones has led the New York Giants to one playoff victory since being chosen in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft and has passed for 12,512 yards with 62 touchdowns to 40 interceptions.
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