B/R's One-sentence Advice to New York Giants Ahead of Draft

Truer words were never spoken.

With the NFL Draft, perhaps the most important part of the off-season roster-building process, less than a month away, Blecher Report's Brad Gagnon, who offered one sentence of advice to all 32 NFL teams, had some very sage words of wisdom for the New York Giants:

That advice? "Daniel Jones is a sunk cost, but don't let that handcuff you further by ignoring a potential franchise quarterback in the draft."

Those words are, of course, in response to the consistent insistence by general manager Joe Schoen, head coach Brian Daboll, and now co-owner John Mara that the team plans to stick with Daniel Jones this year once the quarterback has received medical clearance to return from a torn ACL suffered in Week 10 of last season.

Despite the team's insistence that the "expectation" is to roll with Jones for this year, the Giants brass isn't foolish enough (we think) to pass on taking a quarterback from a ridiculously deep class that team scouting personnel has described to Mara as the best quarterbacks class in years.

Besides the fact that the team has done extensive work on the top quarterbacks in the class--Drake Maye of North Carolina, J.J. McCarthy of Michigan, and Jayden Daniels of LSU--this off-season, the Giants brass is well aware of Jones's delicate injury history, which includes two neck injuries over the last three seasons that caused him to miss chunks of time.

While Mara has gone on record as saying that the team did everything possible to screw up Jones, from not giving him a solid supporting cast to the constant changing of head coaches and offensive coordinators, he did concede that he would not stand in the way if Schoen and Daboll fell in love with a quarterback and wanted to move up in the draft order to get him.

As for Jones, there are many reasons why the Giants are likely to stick with the former Duke signal caller, the sixth overall pick in the 2019 draft. One, the Giants, if they do take a quarterback, will probably have that kid sit for as much of the upcoming year as possible while he acclimates to life in the NFL.

Two, while the offensive line does appear to be improved, at least on paper, until that unit takes the field and shows it's better, being improved on paper doesn't mean a thing. There are still concerns, for example, as to whether right tackle Evan Neal will finally start to look like a capable offensive tackle.

Thus, if the Giants want to avoid what happened to Jones as a rookie when he was rushed out to the playing field with whatever quarterback they liked, they should make sure they have all their ducks in a row regarding putting a solid supporting cast on the field.

Third, thanks to the contract they gave Jones, the Giants cannot move him off the roster this year due to the cap implications involved. By allowing him to play, if Jones, as they believe, is closer to being the quarterback they saw in 2022 than the one in 2023, perhaps they might be able to build up a trade market for him for a team desperate to acquire a starting quarterback with experience given that next year's quarterbacks class is said to be a thin one talent-wise.

Of course, this plan has a drawback: the injury guarantee in Jones's contract. If Jones were to get injured again and unable to pass a physical next year, $23 million of his $30 million base salary would become fully guaranteed.

Regardless, the finances shouldn't keep the Giants from acquiring a quarterback in this draft if they believe there is one to be had who offers more upside and a cleaner injury history. And as for Jones, if the team's season heads south early, don't be surprised if he ends up being benched so that the team can protect itself against having to be locked into the contract guarantee he has for injury.

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