Daniel Jones needs to learn a new playbook, and suddenly coaches are more excited to bring their designs to him.
The Jones Factor in the Giants’ coaching search is two-fold: How will the quarterback handle starting over after his promising rookie season? How does his presence impact the search?
If the job was open four months ago, a candidate could have interpreted being force fed the supposedly over-drafted and maligned Jones as a detriment. It is commonplace for a coach who takes over a bad team to draft a quarterback of his choosing, like Tom Coughlin-Eli Manning, Doug Pederson-Carson Wentz, Kliff Kingsbury-Kyler Murray and more.
But now? Giants co-owner John Mara isn’t met with resistance when he says, “I think we’ve got the answer at quarterback.” As one former NFL coach told The Post, Jones could be the most appealing part of the job.
“You have to be honest about the situation,” ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky said.
“If you were a person, like me, who had some question marks about Daniel Jones [in the draft], it would be really hard to honestly say you feel the same way now: ‘The things I saw as potential limitations I still see.’ For a player to show you, ‘I’m not what you thought I was,’ in a good way, that’s very enticing.”
Jones has three more years of salary-cap friendly team control on his contract — compared to the Browns’ Baker Mayfield’s two, coming off a backward-step second season; the uncertainty of Cam Newton’s health and future with the Panthers; and Dak Prescott’s looming huge payday from the Cowboys.
It could be a tiebreaker in the Giants’ favor — especially over Carolina — as another former NFL coach said. Especially because the No. 4 pick in the draft can be used to address another major need.
Jones threw for 3,027 yards, 24 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, with a quarterback rating of 87.7, in 13 games.
“This year’s crop of [draft] quarterbacks — Joe Burrow looks great — but there are very few guarantees,” SiriusXM NFL Radio host Jim Miller said. “Here they’ve got Daniel Jones and he’s got plenty of upside. I feel a lot of coaches would be happy developing Daniel Jones and have to feel they can win with the Giants.”
Why? Because Jones shouldn’t be set back by a new offense.
“It will not be any big challenge for him,” Orlovsky said. “He’s been challenged from football intellect since the moment he walked onto Duke’s campus. He’s understood how to learn and memorize things that are important in the progression of an offense. That will be important for the hire: Are you getting the coach who understands how his eyes see football?”
The main argument for keeping fired coach/play-caller Pat Shurmur was to establish continuity for Jones. That rarely prevails in today’s NFL — perhaps unwisely.
“My job is to work as hard as I can to improve, to learn the system and work with the next coach,” Jones said.
Of the 26 first-round quarterbacks drafted from 2010-18, 10 experienced a coaching change during or after their rookie season. Six more changed offensive coordinators. Only 10 returned to the same top structure in Year 2.
“It’s more a reflection of the lack of patience by the organization than a reflection of the quarterback,” Miller said. “You are going to go through growing pains. Patrick Mahomes is a rare bird. So is Lamar Jackson. Guys are getting drafted high because they are on bad teams. With that comes a lot of losing.”
Many of the best quarterbacks in that time frame returned to continuity — including Deshaun Watson, Josh Allen, Wentz and Newton. Andrew Luck, Jackson and Mahomes experienced a coordinator change only.
Jones will join the housecleaning group that includes Sam Darnold, Jared Goff and Mitchell Trubisky.
“If I can have the same system for the second year in a row,” Darnold said when Jets coach Adam Gase was given a vote of confidence for 2020, “I can only imagine how much better I would understand the offense.”
The biggest challenge awaiting Jones is playbook language. The same pass in Duke’s offense, Shurmur’s and his next coach’s could have a different name, different route prioritization and different defensive keys to read. Add in variables for man-to-man and zone coverages, and mixed messages lead to mistakes.
“He can compare plays,” Miller said, “but those things can stunt a quarterback’s growth.”
Orlovsky says “a lot of young quarterbacks are ruined” by coaches who don’t understand quarterbacking.
“Everyone thinks that continuity means success,” Orlovsky said. “We can’t place the value of continuity over the value of a really good coach. You can’t fear change. You have to be willing to fear being in the same position next year that you are right now. Do you want continuity? Yes. But you can’t sacrifice performance just to have it.”
For more on the Giants, listen to the latest episode of the “Blue Rush” podcast:
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January 05, 2020 at 03:17PM
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How Daniel Jones factor plays in Giants' coach search - New York Post
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