More Than Ever, Giants Need to Protect Daniel Jones from Himself
If Giants head coach Joe Judge is truly not concerned with anything more than having the team improve a little more each day, then hobbled quarterback Daniel Jones needs to sit.
If Judge truly wants to ensure he has the best players to help the team win, then hobbled quarterback Daniel Jones needs to sit.
If hobbled quarterback Daniel Jones wants to be able to do his job again sooner than later, he needs to sit.
Jones, an unquestioned team leader and devoted football junkie who has taken up Eli Manning’s mantle of being that guy who outworks everyone, is in no danger of losing his starting job any time soon.
But if he continues to not be honest with himself and with his head coach about the state of his lower body and how dealing with a still-not right hamstring in one leg and a twisted ankle in the other, he’s not doing himself or his teammates any favors.
Judge, remember, revealed that he had to step in and make the decision to shut down Jones for the team’s big game against Seattle after the quarterback literally begged to be active. And even as recently as Wednesday, Judge quipped that if Jones’ arm was attached to his body with a rubber band, he’d “figure out a way” to get it done.
“He’s a tough, tough competitor,” Judge said of Jones. “ He’s not going to be very early to tell you that he just has a boo-boo. This guy, it takes something serious for him to kind of open up and give information about what’s going on and you’ve got to really see it with your eyes.”
What they’re seeing is a stubborn player who just a couple of weeks ago Judge admitted to having to make the final call on sitting Jones against Seattle after the quarterback apparently lobbied to play, a move that Judge admitted he made to protect the player from himself.
This is also the same quarterback with whom the coaches had to drill it into his head the importance of learning to live for another down rather than to take unnecessary risks with the ball in his hand, some of those risks leading to his carelessness with the ball or some forced throws that should have never been made.
“My job is to prepare to play and to play when I can play,” Jones said with the slightest hint of defiance in his voice. “That’s what I’m in control of, that’s where my mind is. Right now, I have to do everything I can to prepare mentally and physically to play. That’s where I’m focused.”
Only Judge, his assistant coaches, and the team’s medical staff know for sure how Jones moved around during the entirety of the team’s practice on Wednesday whereas reporters who posted videos from a distance captured that footage at the start of practice during warmups and individual drills.
Regardless of how Jones did move around in practice Wednesday, or how he moves around Thursday and Friday for that matter, if his mobility hasn’t improved from what he showed in the game last week, then the Giants need to practice what they preach to Jones about knowing when to say when, and they need to sit him this weekend.
