How the Giants are ensuring the Daniel Jones era gets off to a good start

The Giants officially passed the torch from longtime veteran quarterback to Eli Manning to rookie Daniel Jones in what appears to have been a smooth transaction. Here's a look at how things will be playing out moving forward.

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For the first two weeks of practice this year, Daniel Jones ran the scout team, and Eli Manning took the bulk of the snaps with the starting offense.

This week, the roles have changed. Jones, the 22-year-old first-round pick, has been handed the keys to the hotrod, the franchise now pinning its hopes on the sixth overall pick of this year’s draft to somehow jumpstart an offense that despite being ranked sith overall in average yards per game (420.0) is ranked 26th in average points scored per game (15.5). 

“Yeah, I certainly feel good about how far I have come in my preparation and my progress since I got here in the spring, through camp and these first couple weeks,” Jones told a crowded auditorium filled with reporters and television cameras when asked if he was ready for the role he was handpicked to fill. .

“I think I’ve gotten some sense of that in the preseason and certainly it will be elevated during the regular season,” he said. “All I can do this week is to make sure I’m prepared, the team is prepared, and I do all I possibly can."

Having gotten the backing of his head coach, who when asked if Jones was the best option at the position right now, responded int he affirmative, the next logical question had to do with the locker room itself.

Whereas players lose starting jobs all the time--most recently linebacker Tae Davis and cornerback Antonio Hamilton were removed from the starting defensive lineup--the Giants are venturing into uncharted territory by benching a player of Manning's stature, a borderline Hall of Famer, but who has also been the face of the franchise for most of his 16 years on the job.

"I am well aware of all that," Shurmur said when asked about the magnitude of the decision. 

" I’ve said it all along, Eli is closer to 40 than he is 20 and so that’s how it all started. I sort of knew what I wanted to say when he walked in (Tuesday) morning, but it changed on the run on for me because of the naturalness of two people talking. He quickly left and got to work doing Tuesday things." 

Shurmur expressed confidence that Manning would continue to be the consummate professional and put the team's needs ahead of his personal preferences. 

To his credit, Manning stood before reporters bearing his usual poker face and vowed that although he wouldn't necessarily be playing, he would do whatever he could to help.

"I’ve been trying to help him in every which way I could throughout the preseason and training camp and whatnot, so now I’ll still do that," Manning said. 

"I’ll support him, answer his questions if he has any, don’t get him thinking too much, but just give him information that I’ve learned over 15 years that I think he could use."

bruised egos aside, a more important issue for Shurmur was how the locker room might view the decision to bench a Giants legend who, despite the offense's numbers, was not solely to blame for the team's struggles.

"Not that I’ve noticed," said left tackle Nate Solder when asked if the change affected the locker room. 

"But I think that we have a lot to worry about. We have a great team with Tampa coming up, and we need to be prepared for that. We have to focus on the things that we need to do to win that game."

Shurmur himself had to consider how the news might be received int he locker room, but in the end, the positives far outweighed any perceived negatives.

"In some ways, this decision was separate, but in many ways, it was connected," he said. 

"The reason I say that is we are all connected in what happens. We haven’t done anything well enough to win the first two games. They are well aware of the fact that everybody in the room has to do what they do better. Yes, I did have that conversation with (the team)."

Shurmur seemed annoyed when asked if the move to the rookie could be interpreted as him giving up on the season. 

"That’s a narrative that I don’t understand. We’re onto playing Tampa Bay. I don’t want to steal somebody else’s phrase, but we are on to playing Tampa Bay, and that’s where our focus is on the 2019 season," he said. 

"We all realize there’s a lot of football left to play, and you can see the uncertainty a team faces each week. You get a little juice, you win a football game, and who knows what’s going to happen?"

What's probably going to happen is that Jones is going to take his share of lumps as he starts to see things for the first time at this level and at the speed this game is known for. But if the rookie is fazed at all, he's not letting on, and in fact, is embracing the challenges that await him.

“My job is to be ready and to continue to improve,” Jones said. “I feel like I have been able to do that. You don’t know when something like this is going to happen. I can’t control that. I was just trying to be prepared, and I will continue to prepare the same way this week.”