NFL
By: Rick O’Donnell
Hard Knocks exposed plenty of telling things when it comes to the New York Giants offseason. There was a shift in strategy and the Giants let one of their star players go in order to build around Daniel Jones. You could see in those episodes that owner, John Mara, did not want to let Saquon Barkley go and was torn up even worse seeing him go to the division rival Philadelphia Eagles.
The question of whether or not it was the right move was always going to linger. GM Joe Schoen tried to trade up to get a young QB he could build around, but as shown on Hard Knocks, the New England Patriots weren’t ready to play ball. It was a gamble that didn’t pay off. Letting Barkley go may haunt him going forward, but sticking it out with Daniel Jones may haunt him a bit more.
The problem with Daniel Jones is, he’s not playing terribly. He’s completing a respectable 63% of his passes. He’s wedged between Jayden Daniels, said to be having a great rookie season, and Jared Goff who’s leading an impressive Lions team. He’s 13th in the league in passing in a down year of explosive plays for QBs across the board. Give the guy his credit.
Unfortunately, that’s where the praise ends. Playing good football isn’t enough if you can’t score points. So far this season, Jones has 6 TDs and 5 INTs through 8 games. He’s second in the league in sacks with 25 despite being behind a rebuilt offensive line. The whole point of letting Saquon Barkley walk was to use the money to build the line around Daniel Jones.
So the real question is should the Giants have tried to move on from Jones in the offseason and take on some of his contract to trade him away? If they traded up to get a QB they would’ve never acquired Malik Nabers who will be an explosive playmaker for them in the future. Would it have been wise to try to trade for Justin Fields who has 8 touchdowns to 1 INT? Could they have struck a deal to keep Saquon, and signed Joe Flacco who has 7 TDs and 1 INT? Or Jameis Winston who just came in and threw for 300+ yards, two TDs, and 1 INT? Even the Jets/Panthers cast off Sam Darnold has 14 TDs to just 5 INTs and 7th in the league in passing.
There was an avenue to keep one of the New York Giants’ favorite players in-house and hindsight is 20/20. However, the Giants offense isn’t stalling out moving the football. They’re stalling out scoring points, a staple of Daniel Jones’ career. Looking back on their season, this call might haunt them for years to come unless they can have another explosive offseason.
