The New York Giants: How To Ruin A Quarterback

The New York Football Giants have not been playing as well as they want to be, with many fans putting a lot of the blame on the subpar play of Daniel Jones. While Daniel Jones has certainly not played well enough, it’s possible it has much more to do with the New York Giants as a franchise doing everything they possibly could to ensure that he fails, rather than just simply him lacking the talent to be successful at the NFL level.

Danny Dimes At Duke

First, let’s take a brief look at the production by Daniel Jones back in college. Jones had okay numbers in college at Duke. He threw for solid yardage and completed a decent percentage of his passes, but his touchdowns compared to interceptions weren’t particularly impressive. In 2016, he threw for 16 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. In 2017, he threw for 14 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, and in 2018 he threw for 22 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. The Giants did not need Daniel Jones, they could’ve afforded to sell out for another year and wait for a better QB draft class, but they didn’t. They chose Daniel Jones because they truly wanted him. Giving a young quarterback the resources and environment he needs to develop and grow is extremely crucial to them finding success. How have the Giants supported Daniel Jones in his most crucial years? They haven’t.

How The New York Giants Failed Him

The Giants have failed to support Daniel Jones in three main ways:

1. Failing to give him a good coaching staff
2. Failing to protect him on the field
3. Failing to give him any run game or anyone noteworthy to throw to

The Coaching Roulette

Going into the 2022 NFL season, Daniel Jones will be working with his third head coach and fourth offensive coordinator. The main thing you want from your quarterback is consistency, but how can you expect him to be consistent when the staff talking to and teaching him changes every year? The Giants offensive play calling the last few seasons has also been questionable at best and just kind of laughable at moments. Bad coaching that changes every season and bad play-calling that also changes every season does not exactly put your young quarterback trying to adapt to the speed of the NFL game in a position to succeed. In each year of his career so far, Daniel Jones has been forced to learn a brand new system and that tradition isn’t changing as we enter the 2022 NFL season.

An Offensive Line Problem

The Giants offensive line has been terrible for the last decade, with basically every attempt to improve it failing horribly. Andrew Thomas has been fine and Evan Neal is an exciting new addition for this upcoming season, but the unit responsible for protecting the young franchise quarterback has not been anywhere near good enough. According to Pro Football Reference, Daniel Jones was sacked 38 times in 2019, 45 times in 2020, and 22 times in 2021. None of which were a full season’s worth of games, by the way. Jones being under pressure almost every play makes it difficult for him to find success.

No Run Game And No Receivers

Providing a young quarterback with a solid running game is important because it can drastically lower the amount of pressure and responsibility they have each game. You don’t want your new franchise quarterback to have to be the hero every single drive or feel like they need to throw for 400 yards a game in order to have a chance at winning. With the previously mentioned terrible offensive line and a superstar running back that can’t stay on the field, the New York Football Giants have not exactly dominated on the ground. The entire Giants offense has been set up to fail by an incompetent front office and coaching staff.

In addition to the run game, or lack thereof, Daniel Jones hasn’t been provided with an elite or even slightly above average cast of wide receivers. The Giants overpaid for Kenny Golladay and he quite literally had no impact at all last year. Kadarius Toney had the same amount of impact as Golladay and Darius Slayton, despite having a solid rookie year, hasn’t done much since. Daniel Jones needs his receivers to have an impact.

At the end of the day, an incompetent front office and bad coaching staff have set the New York Giants offense up for failure. Daniel Jones could be a good quarterback. He can lead the Giants to greatness. Although, it does feel like they may have already ruined him too much. It all falls on Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen now. It’s up to them to save Daniel Jones and the New York Football Giants.