Will Daniel Jones Throw for 4K+ Yards This Season? Not So Fast, According to One Opinion

Slowly but surely, New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones has made believers out of his staunchest critics.

But until Jones starts putting up elite numbers that justify the four-year, $160 million contract he signed in the off-season, there will still be disbelievers out there who refuse to see him as anything more than an average game manager.

One such critic questioning whether Danny Dollars will take that leap is CBS Sports' Jeff Kerr, who, in his piece on Overreations and reality, believes that Jones throwing for 4,000 yards this season is an overreaction.

Kerr acknowledges that Jones has a better collection of weapons to throw to but points to one statistical factor as the source of his doubt.

Why can't Jones throw for 4,000 yards? Last year was arguably his best season, and Jones only averaged 200.3 passing yards per game on a career-high 6.8 yards per attempt. Unless Brian Daboll makes significant changes to his offense to favor Jones, the quarterback likely won't be putting up those numbers.

Jones would also have to play all 17 games and average 235.3 pass yards per game to accomplish the feat, the latter he's never done (Jones would have played all 17 games if the Giants didn't clinch a playoff berth before the final week). This all comes down to how Daboll uses Saquon Barkley, but 4,000 passing yards is a stretch for Jones until his head coach proves otherwise.

The logical counterargument to Kerr's first point is that with better weapons in the receiving game, which he acknowledged exists, there will be significant changes made that should boost Jones's 6.8 yards per pass attempt higher. The Giants have been experimenting this off-season with deeper passes and have had success with more explosiveness on offense.

While the bulk of the Giants' passing game is predicated on the shorter stuff, which allows the speedy smaller receivers to pick up the yards after the catch, there's certainly no reason to think that the Giants won't be trying deeper passes this year, something they weren't able to do consistently last season.

As for Kerr's second point, I'm unsure how Jones's playing all 17 games and the team's use of Sauqon Barkley are directly related. Last year, Jones did not miss a game for the first time in his career due to injury. With a (hopefully) better offensive line in front of him and with (hopefully) less need to call designed runs, there's no reason to think he won't stay healthy for a second straight year.

Barkley? He's still a part of this offense and could see an uptick in his pass targets, of which he had 76 last year. The Giants have experimented with different looks this summer in which they have moved Barkley around the formation, and those looks have all yielded a degree of success.

While it's unlikely the Giants will deploy Barkley as more of a receiver, that they plan to expand his role in the offense can only help Jones reach that 4,000-yard threshold.

Kerr concludes his argument by noting, "Not turning the football over and winning games is more important anyway." No argument there. But this idea that Jones is nothing more than a game manager at this stage in his career and in this system, he's been placed in is perhaps the biggest overreaction in the entire argument against Jones's joining the 4K club.

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