NFL QB Tiers: Giants Daniel Jones Gets Generous Rank from CBS Sports

Daniel Jones finds himself in good company in CBS Sports's latest quarterback tier ranking.

No one player drives an NFL team more than its quarterback, just as no quarterback in recent New York Giants history seems to split the fan base more than Daniel Jones.

But after signing a new four-year contract and coming off his best season, Jones, who heads into Year 2 of running the Brian Daboll-Mike Kafka offense, is slowly gaining more credibility among the critics.

In his recent ranking of NFL quarterbacks, CBS Sports's Will Brinson divided the group into tiers. Jones landed in the third tier, or the "intrigue but with question marks" group, defined as "a combo of younger rising stars and veterans who have won at the highest level but can't be totally trusted."

Well done, @WillBrinson pic.twitter.com/5imm1OlFv8

— Chris Trapasso 🏈 (@ChrisTrapasso) July 6, 2023

Jones, who led the team to a 9-7-1 record last year, hasn't exactly won at the "highest level," like Super Bowl winners Aaron Rodgers (Packers/Jets), Matthew Stafford (Rams), and Russell Wilson (Seahawks/Broncos), who are part of the group along with Tua Tagovailoa (Miami), Justin Fields (Chicago), and Deshaun Watson (Cleveland).

But Jones has shown, at least in his first season in this current offense, that with a decent supporting cast around him, he can be effective enough to avoid the lower rankings such as Tier 4 (You Can Win With Them), Tier 5 (Future Potential 'Can Win With Them' Guys), and Tier 6 (No Clue, Man).

Brinson sums up perfectly why Jones is more of Tier 3 than a Tier 4 (You Can Win With Them) tier:

Jones took a massive leap forward last season with good coaching -- I don't understand the idea he's going to be worse in a second year with Brian Daboll coaching him up after the poo-poo platter New York gave him before

(Neither do I. But I digress.)

Last year one could argue, given what Jones had to work with, the team won with him, creating enough intrigue to see just how much farther along he can go in Year 2 of the same system. That he also has a better-supporting cast, at least on paper, helps to create the intrigue, as does the contract, which currently puts Jones as the eighth-highest cap hit among quarterbacks for 2023.

"I’d just say that he's got much more comfort level with our offense," Daboll said of his quarterback this past spring. "We've added, I'd say, considerably new things in these camps just to see how they look. But he's got really good give-and-take with (offensive coordinator Mike) Kafka, seeing how different players look in different spots. He's had a really good camp."

Besides building on what he started last year, a big-picture item for Jones to further erase his skeptics would be the ability to load the team on his shoulders come crunch time.

Last year he engineered four of his six career game-winning drives, this again, with an average supporting cast. He looked more and more comfortable and confident as the weeks went on, making strides in his pocket movement, ball security, throwing accuracy, ball handling, decision-making, and situational awareness.

Jones still needs to show he can run a productive offense from the pocket and prove that last year wasn't a fluke. The team didn't think it was; else, it wouldn't have given him a new contract. It's up to Jones to show the organization that it didn't make a mistake.

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