Giants bench Daniel Jones, but their biggest mistake was never having Plan B at QB
Daniel Jones of the Giants looks on in the second half against the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium on Nov. 3. Credit: Jim McIsaac
This should have been the week that Drake Maye prepared to make his first start for the Giants. Or J.J. McCarthy or Bo Nix. Or Sam Darnold or Justin Fields or Russell Wilson. Or any of a half dozen other potential quarterbacks the Giants had a legitimate and logical chance to add to their roster this past offseason.
Instead, the Giants are turning their offense over to Tommy DeVito.
No one is clamoring for Daniel Jones to keep his job. After six years he’s shown each and every one of us that he’s not the guy Dave Gettleman thought he would be when he drafted him in April 2019, nor is he the one Joe Schoen believed him to be when he signed him to that four-year, $160 million contract in March 2023. It took some a little longer to arrive at this awakening than others — 621 days since that ill-advised extension was inked to be exact — but Jones’ tenure with the team has run its course.
He’ll likely never play another snap for the Giants and will be cut or traded this coming spring. Oh, well. Goodbye and good luck. No hard feelings.
But the fact there is no one to insert in his place on Sunday with an eye toward the future of the organization, and certainly no one who can capably change the present direction and narrative of this season, stands as a greater indictment against the current regime than its insistence on sticking with Jones for as long as it did.
They couldn’t even get the right backup in place with Jones coming off a torn ACL and uncertain to start this season. They gave Drew Lock a $5 million deal to be their No. 2, only to leapfrog him with DeVito when the time came to actually require his services.
Of course, if they had drafted or signed someone more capable, Jones probably would have been benched weeks ago. His play this season has done nothing to defend his job. It was the lack of options that kept him on the field.
It leaves the Giants and their fans contemplating Schrodinger’s quarterback: That DeVito is this team’s best current option at quarterback is both insultingly absurd and devastatingly possible at the same time. On Sunday, we open that box.
They always knew there was a chance Jones wasn’t their long-term answer. Anyone who watched five minutes of "Hard Knocks" this summer — including Jones himself — knew that was their thinking. Coach Brian Daboll appeared to understand it better than Schoen, although even the general manager structured the four-year Jones extension in such a way that he could slip out of it after two seasons, a route he will soon be taking.
Yet doing nothing to prepare the roster and the team for this eventuality was their true sin, one of omission rather than action. It leaves the Giants in a damnation that has always been the route of “other” organizations but not theirs.
The Giants don’t tank? Oh, really? Here’s Tommy Cutlets and his charming ethnic hand gestures to try to keep you from noticing while they do.
There was one word conspicuous in its absence from Daboll’s announcement on Monday. Daboll said he thinks DeVito can give the team a spark. He said he’ll bring a lot of energy to the field. In naming him the starter for Sunday’s game Daboll cited his fundamentals, his decision-making at the line of scrimmage, his performances in meetings and in practices (which is about all he can go by since he hasn’t taken a live snap since August), and noted that the second-year quarterback has played “almost 700 snaps” for the team in his regular and preseason appearances this year and last. Is that a lot? Who knows. Who cares.
But what he didn’t say — and couldn’t say even when pressed on the matter — was that DeVito gives the Giants the best chance to win. That’s the word that was never uttered on Monday: Win.
It’s likely because this decision has nothing to do with it at all. In fact, it obviously behooves the Giants to avoid winning the rest of this season, giving them a higher draft slot in April as they maneuver themselves into position to find a quarterback who can do for the franchise what Jones could not. They also need to keep Jones safe so as not to initiate the up to $23 million in injury guarantees that would be activated for 2025 and complicate the whole situation further.
The Giants did, as John Mara once said, do a lot to “screw up” Jones’ tenure here. But they also gave him some proven offensive coaches in Daboll, Jason Garrett and Pat Shurmur, albeit on a bit of a merry-go-round. And they gave him players to throw to, even if none were Pro Bowl-level talents. They even eventually got around to giving him something approaching a decent offensive line, although that project certainly took a step backward when Andrew Thomas was lost for the season with a foot injury last month.
What they never did, though, was give him serious competition for his job. When he was drafted, it was just a matter of time before he replaced Eli Manning, and that took all of two weeks. Then there was Colt McCoy and Tyrod Taylor, both of whom were clearly designated as his clipboard holders. Even when they signed Lock this offseason, the Giants went out of their way to dispel any whispers that he might usurp Jones. Injury was always Jones’ biggest in-house rival.
There was never anyone to truly push Jones. There was never an alternative, never a palatable Plan B.
There still isn’t.
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.