Giants Country

New York Giants QB Daniel Jones: The Good, The Great, and The Ugly

Daniel Jones's injury-shortened season was marred by poor offensive line play. For this analysis, we chose to look at his best performance of 2023, the Week 2 game against Arizona.

Gene Clemons

Sep 17, 2023; Glendale, AZ, USA; Arizona Cardinals linebacker Krys Barnes (51) tackles New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones (8) in the second half at State Farm Stadium.
Sep 17, 2023; Glendale, AZ, USA; Arizona Cardinals linebacker Krys Barnes (51) tackles New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones (8) in the second half at State Farm Stadium. / Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY
In this story:

The Daniel Jones debate will likely never end, as Jones’s presence on the roster continues to split the New York Giants fan base.

In this analysis of the best and worst Jones has shown, it seemed silly to discuss the potential of a quarterback going into his sixth season. Instead, we put a microscope on the player he has shown he can be.

The 2023 season was cut short by injury for Jones, who was in Year 1 of a four-year 160-million dollar contract. He started the first five games before missing the next three with a neck injury. He suffered a season-ending ACL tear during his week nine start against Las Vegas. 

His season looked like a complete failure statistically, but many factors led to his overall poor performance. Still, there were rays of light in Jones' game, specifically the Arizona Cardinals game in Week 2. He finished that game 26 of 37 for 321 yards, two passing touchdowns, and an interception that ricocheted off the hands of Saquon Barkley. 

Jones also ran the ball nine times for 59 yards and a touchdown, his best performance of the season and likely the best representation of what head coach Brian Daboll and the rest of the staff hope the 2024 offense will look like with Jones operating it. 

So let’s take a deep dive into that game to see when Jones performs at his best and what still holds him back in this edition of “The Good, the Great, and the Ugly.” 

The Good: Running Ability

One of the most underrated aspects of Jones’s game is his ability to run the football. His running ability has always been a major component of his success as a quarterback. 

The first aspect is that as a rusher, he operates well with quarterback run reads on plays and forces the defense to play 11-on-11. In this Arizona game, he scored a rushing touchdown on a read play that caught the defense completely off guard. 

The second aspect is avoiding rushers. His running ability buys time to get rid of the ball. Several times in this game, he ran away from pressure and either completed passes or threw the ball away. 

The final and most dangerous aspect of his running ability is when he escapes the pocket to run. Defenders typically cover receivers when he takes off. In this Arizona game, several times, he picked up chunks of yards when he pulled the ball down and took off running.  

The Great: First Read Accuracy

Jones has always been at his best when he is confident in what he sees. In the short and intermediate passing game, he has a lot of success when his initial read is available. 

In the short-to-intermediate passing game, success is predicated on the quarterback’s ability to minimize receiver peril and increase their opportunity to run after the catch. 

On initial reads, Jones shines. He delivers the ball with near-perfect placement, which allows the receiver to catch the ball on the move or with space to make moves. The ball is also thrown in places to help the receiver avoid the big hit. 

In this group of plays from the Arizona game, you can see that they allowed Jones to feast on the first read. He was able to get the ball out of his hands quickly, helping to neutralize the pass rush.

The Ugly: Deep Pass Anticipation

The deep ball has always been a point of consternation in Jones's game. Is he capable of throwing it? He has completed beautiful deep passes throughout his tenure in New York. 

The problem is the deep passes that are not completed or even attempted. Jones seems to have two issues with the deep pass. The first is his unwillingness to take the shot. 

There are times when there are clear opportunities to throw deep, and instead, he dumps it off to a shorter, safer pass. We saw this in the Arizona game when there were a few times when he could have taken the shot but seemed unwilling to pull the trigger. 

The other issue is that when he throws it deep, he is throwing with anticipation. There are two types of deep ball throwers: those blessed with seemingly unlimited arm strength and those that release the ball with anticipation, allowing them to beat the defense before they can respond. It usually eliminates underthrown passes as well. 

During this game, Jones completed a couple of deep passes that should have been touchdowns, but the receiver had to wait for them. Jones also had a sure touchdown that he waited to throw, but it ended up out of bounds.

Coach’s Counsel

This Cardinals game points to the offensive philosophy with Jones at the helm. It should be short, quick passes that allow Jones to get the ball away in a hurry, plays with quarterback reads attached to them to leverage defenders to respect his rushing ability, and giving Jones the green light to take off earlier if he does not like what he sees in coverage. 

His health will ultimately determine just how effective he will be because his overall game is not as potent if defenses do not have to respect him as a runner. 

Published |Modified
Gene Clemons
GENE CLEMONS

Gene "Coach" Clemons has been involved with the game of football for 30 years as a player, coach, evaluator, and journalist.  Clemons has spent time writing for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, Bridgton News, Urbana Daily Citizen, Macon Telegraph and footballgameplan.com.  He has a YouTube channel called "Coach Gene Clemons" where you can find his popular "X&O The Joes" series as well as other football related content. 

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