There are two young quarterbacks in the NFL named Jones right now, and they have a lot in common. Both were relatively unheralded in college, both were projected as late first round picks, and they both were picked sooner than expected. Both are regarded as extremely strong on the intangibles: very smart, very coachable, and very hard-working. Both are accurate passers.
From there things diverge. The first to enter the league,
Daniel (“Danny Dimes”) Jones of the New York Giants, has played for parts of
three seasons behind a disaster of an offensive line within a dysfunctional
franchise. The second, Mac Jones, has played one season for the NFL’s flagship franchise
of the past two decades in the Patriots.
Of the two, Daniel is regarded as having the greater
physical gifts: he’s taller, more mobile, and has a stronger arm; he throws a
nice deep ball and regularly makes big plays with his legs. Arguably more upside
there. The results have told a different story, however. Mac led the Patriots
to the playoffs in his one opportunity, and Daniel has been under .500 every
year.
Not surprisingly, the narrative around the two quarterbacks
has followed the results. Despite a rocky finish to his rookie season, a great
many Pats fans believe they’ve found their franchise quarterback of the future.
Rookies get better, and Mac has done just fine at 10-7. It’s not unreasonable
to think that as he improves, the Patriots will resume contending every season.
(Please settle down and hold the Brady comparisons, though.)
Just down I-95, the mood is different. Many fans and pundits
are calling for the Giants to move on from Daniel and draft his replacement,
because look at his results! As a Giants fan I cringe when I hear that. I think
Daniel Jones has the potential to be regarded as the equal of Phil Simms or Eli
Manning when he’s done, if only they can clean up their offensive line
problems.
Consider poor Mike Glennon. For seven seasons he looked like
the prototype NFL backup, functioning serviceably or even well for a variety of
teams, with rating stats at or near the league average. Then he came to the
Giants and took over when Jones went down with injury. Jones’ stats had been
mediocre, with a 4-7 record and a career-low 41.7 QBR (the league average is
50) when he went down. Enter the formerly average Glennon, who promptly went
0-4 in his four starts with a comically bad QBR of 11.9. It was a nightmare.
Jake Fromm wasn’t much better, at 0-2 with a 15.4 QBR.
So if Daniel could at least compete when his replacements
couldn’t, why does everybody want to get rid of him? If he’d played for the
Patriots this season, he might have done quite nicely, and we might be bullish
on his future. I shudder to think of what the less experienced and less mobile
Mac would have looked like behind the Giants line.
Ditto whoever comes next if things don’t improve. Why should
the Giants roll the dice on another college quarterback with less experience
and less upside than Daniel, burning a high first round draft pick in the
process, to watch that guy fail too? Please no. Call me crazy, but maybe
instead they should draft a couple of offensive linemen and give their
quarterback a couple of seconds to look downfield on occasion. I like what I’ve
seen from Jones, and he makes me at least a little bit hopeful about the future,
provided that the once-proud Giants don’t screw it up for us fans yet again.
Some people think that Mac is the Patriots’ franchise QB of
the future, and Daniel should be thrown out with yesterday’s leftover fish. But
if I were new Giants GM Joe Schoen, I wouldn’t trade Daniel for Mac straight up
if given the opportunity. I only hope the Giants get good enough under Schoen and
new coach Brian Daboll to give Danny Dimes the chance to prove me right.
No comments:
Post a Comment