FILM ROOM | Breaking Down Daniel Jones' Deep Passing (Part 2)

In this film study, Nick Falato breaks down Daniel Jones' deep ball struggles and then offers some final thoughts and words of encouragement for the 2020 and beyond.

Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

Let's continue our study that was published yesterday in which we looked at Daniel Jones' deep passing ability.

Examining Daniel Jones' Struggles

Jones proved to be adept with some of his cold-weather throws against Green Bay, but I’d argue one of his worst games was Week 17 against Philidelphia.

He was underthrowing a lot of passes and left several touchdowns on the field; none more alarming than this pass to a wide-open Sterling Shepard.

The Giants are in a tight bunch, with a wide backside receiver, out of the shotgun in 11 personnel. Shepard goes outside as Tate goes inside, forcing Avonte Maddox (No. 22) to hesitate on the coverage assignment.

Shepard takes advantage and burns Maddox, establishing excellent positioning and separation. On this 3rd-and-4 play, against a six-man pressure with a single high safety, Jones is provided an initial clear pocket to step into, but his mechanics become altered right at the throw point.

Barkley does a good job picking up the blitz, and Jones does a good job feeling the backside pressure and subtly stepping up into the pocket, as he double clutches the ball.

As Jones steps up, he angles his body towards Shepard and looks to unload, but Fletcher Cox (No. 91) comes off his block and starts flowing into the pocket.

Very slightly, Jones pulls up a bit on the throw and leans back as if he was avoiding Cox. This took arm strength off the pass, and the ball died in the Meadowlands wind.

Do I think Jones was afraid of contact here? No. However, he was altered at his throw point, and the easy touchdown turned into a turnover on downs the next play.

Same game, and a similar play; Philadelphia is showing cover 1. On the season, Jones was incredibly effective against man coverage, but he struggled in Week 17.

Just like the previous play, it’s 3rd-and-4, and the Giants attempt a vertical slot to Sterling Shepard with the #1 receiver staying at the line of scrimmage to hold the boundary corner in place.

Shepard does an excellent job beating Douglas at the line of scrimmage and running into space, but the ball is under-thrown. Jones doesn’t have immediate pressure in his face and would typically drop this ball over the outside shoulder of a receiver against this coverage, as we saw earlier.

He also had another pass on a 2nd-and-3 that could have been placed better in this game, but the coverage was very good.

Here’s an overthrow to Darius Slayton by Jones in a clean pocket. Jones hits his back foot, slightly slides away from pressure while keeping his eyes downfield, and releases the pass from the far hash to Slayton, who embarrasses the Washington defensive back on the outside break.

I can’t say with full confidence if this is 100% Jones’ fault; it’s a 1st-and-10, and Slayton runs the route and cuts at about 18 yards of depth. Jones seems to put the ball at about 21 yards of depth, effectively overthrowing Slayton.

This may have been a miscommunication on Slayton’s part. Either way, Jones still has the ball in hand when he sees Slayton sink his hips into his break at the 50.

This is a play the Giants ran a lot early in the season; an easy three-level read from a 2x2 formation, with a deep post meant to either split safeties or take advantage of aggressive backend defenders that are driving down on the dig and backside curl.

The Giants receive their wish with the safeties dropping down, but Jones overthrows Russell Shepard, who had a step on the corner. The pocket was clean, and I think this would have been six if it was Sterling Shepard and not Russell Shepard, but it’s still a miss from Daniel Jones.

Ironically enough, the Giants tried this same play against Washington the following week, and Josh Norman must have done his homework as he gave the cushion to the inside post and broke underneath the pass to nearly come away with an interception.

Honestly, I didn’t see much deep inaccuracy throughout his rookie season outside of the under throws against the Eagles and some of the interceptions that we’ll go over a bit later.

But when it did rear its head, the inaccuracy was apparent when Jones was late to recognize a coverage lapse or when he was unloading a deep strike and was getting nailed.

(There were also some passes that Jones put out of bounds, making the catch possible, but very difficult for the receiver; these specific throws were put in that position, tight to the sideline, because a deep defender was running hard to the catch point, typically a safety. I view these throws as “safer options” that were usually being thrown on earlier downs).

Washington shows Cover 2 and plays Tampa-2, with the middle linebacker dropping to a deeper location in his hook zone.

The Giants are in a 3x1 set to the field, and Jones expects the No. 2 receiver to split the safeties and own the deep middle of the field. It takes Jones a bit too long to acknowledge that Tate does not have leverage in the middle of the field due to the middle linebacker dropping underneath his deep post.

Jones holds onto that second progression too long, and by the time he sees Slayton wide open on the backside, it’s too late. Slayton baited and then beat the deep safety on the out cut, and Barkley’s route underneath held the flat corner in place.

Slayton had about 4½ yards of separation and a ton of space from the numbers to the sideline, but Jones couldn’t make the throw until the space was condensed.

If Jones had been a bit quicker recognizing the coverage, it would have been time to move the sticks on the 2nd & 7. For context, it was towards the end of a tied 35-35 game so that Jones may have been looking for the home run, rather than the double, but the play to Slayton would have still helped set up a field goal attempt since the Giants still had three timeouts with 16 seconds left on the clock.

Watching this play might seem frustrating because there’s a wide-open Sterling Shepard available for a touchdown, but the throw is just out of his grasp.

Shepard runs a great route selling the outside break to get Trae Waynes (No. 26) fully turned around, but this is hard to put on Jones when you observe his protection.

Halapio sets the protection by pointing out the MIKE linebacker, and he points out Eric Kendricks (No. 54). At the snap, Kendrick fades to take Tate, and Anthony Barr (No. 55) comes behind the 3-technique to force a 3x2 advantage for the Vikings.

Halapio seems to be looking in that direction, but goes and looks for work to the right side of the line. This leaves a wide-open hole in the B-Gap for Barr to deliver a shot on Jones.

The young quarterback stands in the pocket strong, takes a huge hit, and can’t complete his follow-through. And when you look at the pass from the endzone, it’s not too far off target.

This is a protection and schematic issue that we saw the Giants offensive line struggle with all year. Hopefully, with Marc Colombo in house, the team will improve their protection for the second-year quarterback.

A lot of blame can be assigned to the offensive line unit, but Jones has his struggles.

Jones would too often trust his arm talent and attempt to fit a ball into a place where a safety can realistically make a play on it. 

Looking off the safety is something that Jones did quite often; he’d typically take the snap on a three-step, and once he hit his back foot, he’d direct his vision to the more advantageous place against man coverage.

Holding that single high safety prevents the deep player from making a play on the ball, and this allows his wide receivers to win against one opponent with space.

Jones was very good against man coverage, but he showed some misjudgments against zone, especially with the safeties.

The Lions are a predominant man coverage team, and they line up in a single high defense showing man. This is a 2nd & 10 play backed up in their own end.

At the snap, the overhang defender drops to the left deep half, while the “single high” safety covers the deep right half, with the five defenders underneath, so it’s Cover 2.

Jones hits his back foot, sees the play side corner sink, and attempts the sideline throw from the middle of the field, with Tracy Walker (No. 21) baiting and playing just inside the numbers.

Walker is baiting Jones into throwing this football into the hole, and Jones takes the bait. Luckily for the Giants, Jones was out of bounds. It’s not the only time Jones put the ball in a precarious spot in deep zone coverage.

Washington shows Cover 3 pre-snap and then runs cover 3, but the nature of Cody Latimer’s deep post was supposed to open up the horizontal cross from Shepard.

Once Jones committed to throwing to the cross, Quinton Dunbar #23 was already passing Latimer off to the deep middle of the field safety and crashing down on Shepard’s route.

Jones had little time to react, and maybe should have recognized the coverage, but it’s hard to knock him for it; he was walloped on the play by Tim Settle (No. 97), who beat Will Hernandez badly upfront. (As I said earlier, Jones had to learn quickly about the speed of some of these defensive backs.)

Tampa Bay was Jones’ first start in the NFL. We see Jones with a clean pocket and the ability to step into his throws and deliver a strike downfield.

The Bucs are playing 2-high man under, which is what it sounds like: Safeties in Cover 2 with man coverage underneath.

The Giants come out in the shotgun, 2x2 set. The throw is intended for Bennie Fowler, and the cornerback is playing heavy inside leverage, forcing the throw outside.

This impedes Fowler’s ability to break inside with any authority, and Jones doesn’t recognize that this will be a problem for Fowler. Jones needs to know that there's a two-high safety there, with absolutely no other routes that can occupy him. He doesn’t, and it should have been an interception.

There were signs here that this throw should not have been made, but it wasn’t recognized, which is something that young quarterbacks struggle to deal with. Luckily, Jones got much better at recognizing safeties as the year progressed.

Here’s another zone interception, this time against Dallas, and I attribute this one to accuracy flaws from the far hash.

The Giants are in a 3x1 set in the final minute of the first half, and it’s a 3rd & 10. Barkley does a good job chipping Demarcus Lawrence (No. 90) on the edge. Jones is provided a clean platform and pocket, but he puts the ball way too far inside.

The Cowboys runs a deep Cover 3 and Slayton is running a vertical route up the numbers as the backside receiver. Dallas covers it well, but Jones should have put the ball outside the numbers and more towards the sideline. This way, Xavier Woods No. 25 wouldn’t have had a realistic shot at the ball.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Jones had an underrated season as a deep passer; his accuracy at times was astonishing, and sometimes even in situations where he shouldn’t have thrown the football.

Via NFL Game Pass

Like this picture above on a 3rd-and-17 that ended up being incomplete.

In a clean pocket, Jones delivers this strike over Peterson, and it hits Tate in the hands. Was it a risky throw against a deep 2-high zone coverage? Yes, it was, but that accuracy is still impressive.

Jones had many throws with pinpoint accuracy to the deep areas of the field, especially when he was going against man coverage. He wasn’t shy when his receivers were lined up in single man coverage, and his rapport with Slayton, Tate, and Sterling Shepard was evident.

Those three receivers specifically also helped Jones in creating extra separation, due to their ability to sell routes and explode out of their breaks.

In a clean pocket, Jones showed good rotational torque, and he seemed to time his footwork well with his eyes and shoulders moving simultaneously.

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He’s poised in the pocket and, much like Eli Manning, he doesn’t seem to get rattled. Jones throws with anticipation and touch when necessary, can extend plays with his legs, and does a good job throwing accurately off-platform; if time permits, he also does a good job resetting his feet and squaring his shoulders.

The shaky offensive line posed a problem for the young quarterback. The unit struggled to pick up stunts/twists, and defenses would out scheme the protection. There were also times that Jones enhanced the problem by holding onto the football too long.

If the Giants are planning on moving to a more vertical based passing game, they must fix the protection. A more vertical passing attack would mean Jones would hold onto the football a bit more, and that’s not ideal with a shaky offensive line unit.

Former offensive line coach Hal Hunter has moved on, and Marc Colombo is tasked to fix last year's underwhelming unit, which has added first-round pick Andrew Thomas, third-round pick Matt Peart, fifth-round pick Shane Lemieux, and swing tackle Cameron Fleming. I feel the offensive line is in good hands with Colombo leading the squad.

As impressed as I am with Jones’ deep accuracy against man coverage, he still wasn’t perfect.

Occasional mishaps occurred with accuracy, and he seemed to struggle poorly in the weather against the Eagles. Although he made some nice throws against Green Bay, he still had three interceptions and some poor incompletions.

I can't confidently say he played well in the elements. He did a better job reading zone coverage as the year progressed, but he can still learn from his mistakes of not judging the safeties distance correctly on some of his deep passes.

Under pressure, his weight distribution can get out of whack, which forces erratic passes. At times, he must do a better job IDing the blitz, working through progressions, and not forcing passes into precarious places.

His arm strength is fine, it’s not elite, but it’s good enough to make all the throws.

Overall, the future is bright with the New York Giants. Hopefully, the Giants will be able to become cohesive with all the new moving parts in this truncated offseason, but I’m not too worried about Jones’ ability to make it in this league.

With that said, development isn’t always linear, so let’s hope Jones takes the necessary leaps in a new system, with a new coaching staff.

(Video clips via NFL Game Pass).