Jayden Daniels is everything Giants wish they had at quarterback
Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels talks with Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers after their game on Sunday at MetLife Stadium. Credit: AP/Seth Wenig
Malik Nabers spent a fun few seconds after Sunday’s loss to the Commanders chatting at midfield with his quarterback.
Not Daniel Jones. He’s the guy who throws the ball to him (at least on occasion) these days, but he’s not his quarterback. Nor is anyone currently on this Giants team with the record-setting rookie receiver.
It was a confab with Jayden Daniels, the player with whom he developed such a close bond while they were at LSU the past few years, driving and pushing each other to become fellow first-round picks in the NFL.
“Catching up, yeah,” Nabers said of the warm embrace and private words they shared after Washington’s 27-22 victory at MetLife Stadium.
What did Nabers think of Daniels’ performance?
“How I know he plays, nothing different,” he said. “Leads his team to win. He’s going to do it every time he steps on the field.”
He certainly has against these guys. Daniels on Sunday became the first rookie quarterback since the league began tracking such things in 1950 to start and win two games against the Giants in the same season. He’d beaten them in Week 2, too, on the strength of seven field goals. This time he completed 15 of 22 passes for 209 yards and two touchdowns and added another 35 rushing yards.
He looked like a problem the Giants are going to have to deal with in the division for the next decade and possibly longer.
More than that, though, he was another stark reminder of what the Giants don’t have . . . and what they’ll need to compete in this league.
There were plenty of reasons why the Giants lost this game that had absolutely nothing to do with the guy in the No. 8 home jersey. The defense couldn’t get off the field and allowed some long third-down conversions, the offensive line again was incapable of protecting, several passes were dropped and the team’s young secondary is in crisis.
Jones, in fact, had a statistical line fairly similar to Daniels’ (20-for-26, 174 yards, two touchdown passes) and even ran for a score, something the rookie did not accomplish.
But what Nabers said about Daniels is not something anyone says about Jones, that bit about leading his team to win and doing it every time.
Until the Giants find someone like that at the most critical position in the sport, they’re going to continue to gurgle for air near the bottom of the standings.
Brian Daboll knew that way back in the spring when he met with Daniels and wanted to trade up to draft him. That “Hard Knocks” clip will live as long as the two of them remain tied to each other in this division. At least we know the coach can spot talent, even if the Giants can’t always land it for him.
Nabers knows it, too.
“You just have to build,” he said of what it will take for the Giants to succeed. “You have to build up and put the right people in place to be successful. You have to get the right keys. You have to get the right guys on the team to win. Obviously, the Commanders have done that. They have the right guys on the team and they win.”
Maybe one day soon, the Giants will, too.
Is there such a quarterback out there? Maybe in the draft or in free agency, although none stands out as a sure thing right now. It will be up to Daboll to again find that player and then for general manager Joe Schoen to go get him.
For now, the team with the quarterback who has been in the league for six months is miles ahead of the one with the quarterback who has been in the league for six years. The team that trusts its quarterback to make plays like the 24-yard pass on third-and-18 late in the half that led to the 18-yard touchdown pass he couldn’t have placed any better. Or the 16-yard scramble when Dru Phillips came unblocked on a blitz and whiffed. Or the 28-yard pass on third-and-9 in the fourth quarter when a punt would have given the Giants the ball with a chance to tie the score.
That team is in a much better place than the one that lets theirs attempt only six passes in the first half for zero yards.
Nabers wasn’t the only Giant praising Daniels after this one.
“He’s gotten very comfortable real quick with the game,” defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence said.
Added linebacker Brian Burns: “He’s impressive. I feel like the game has slowed down for him to a certain extent. He seems very poised. He’s in control.”
That’s the quarterback Nabers knew in college.
It’s the quarterback he and the Giants will need to be successful in the NFL.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.