Darius Slayton: 'Declare your allegiances' toward Giants QB Daniel Jones
Giants quarterback Daniel Jones (8) stands with Darius Slayton (86) during training activities at the NFL football team's practice facility, Sunday, July 30, 2023, in East Rutherford, N.J. Credit: AP/John Minchillo
Still can’t make up your mind on Daniel Jones? Not quite sure if you should go all in on him as a big time, top-tier quarterback? Waffling on whether or not he really is the long-term answer for the Giants at quarterback?
Well, you’re running out of time to decide and you won’t even get Sunday’s opener to help sway you.
So says the unofficial online conductor on the Daniel Jones Bandwagon, wide receiver Darius Slayton. He’s the guy who spends at least some of his free time hunting down Jones haters on social media, defending his teammate against the ever-present onslaught of disparaging statements, and often humorously saying the things Jones himself would be pummeled for saying himself … even if it was coming in his own defense.
Slayton once described his online persona as similar to the one in the old Key & Peele routine with the Angry Obama Translator who stood behind the former president and shared the frustration, incredulity and sarcasm that was really going through his front man’s mind.
Slayton is Jones’ Luthur.
So this offseason when Bears safety Jaquan Brisker referred to Jones as “trash” compared to then-still-unsigned Lamar Jackson, Slayton simply posted a screen shot of the score by which Jones and the Giants had beaten the Bears.
When "Madden 24" gave Jones a rating of 75, Slayton was aghast. “Count your days,” he wrote to the game’s developers. “I will find you and you will answer for your sins against humanity.”
"I could be in Antarctica, and if I see a bad tweet, I've got to address it,” Slayton once said. “I think it's just a subconscious thing … Anybody who follows me on Twitter knows Daniel Jones slander is not being tolerated on my timeline. That’ll be that way probably until the day I die.”
And now Slayton has a deadline.
Just as last year when Giants running back Saquon Barkley offered up a strong challenge for his haters, telling them to “stay on that side of the table when things turn around,” so too is Slayton demanding everyone pick a side in any debate over Jones’ abilities.
“The season is here now,” he told Newsday. “I’ll be generous and give people until Sunday [to decide]. By the time we kick the ball off on Sunday, though, the train has left the station. It’s too late at that point. Don’t want to hear it after that.
“Declare your allegiances in advance.”
To be sure, there are far fewer open seats on the Jones Train than there were at this time a year ago. Since then the quarterback has led the Giants to a winning season, a playoff victory, and bagged a new $160 million contract. That was enough to make many fans ardent Jones believers if they weren’t beforehand.
But there are still plenty who don’t see Jones in that light. He is regularly ranked in the middle, and sometimes in the third tier of quarterbacks, whenever national polls or unofficial studies come out. He’s never put himself close to a Pro Bowl conversation. And while he did end last season with a flourish, throwing five touchdowns and only one interception in a three-game span that included the road playoff victory over the Vikings, having his name chanted as he walked off the field at MetLife Stadium on New Year’s Day, and his best stretch of football since, well, his first two starts as a rookie, he did so against two of the worst defenses in the league in Minnesota and Indianapolis.
Not even Jones is banking on that kind of play to automatically pick up where he left off last season.
“I think it starts over for us,” he said. “We made progress last year and a lot of guys are back this year, but we also have a lot of new faces and a different group. Our identity, what we do as a group, starts over. We have to go out and play well, and we’re prepared to do that.”
Also worth remembering: He and the Giants got waxed pretty solidly by the Eagles in their actual final game. Jones is undoubtedly hoping none of that carries over into this season either.
Jones did make tremendous strides last season, particularly with eliminating his miscues. He threw just five interceptions which was the fewest among regular starters, but he was 15th in passing yards (3,206) and 21st in touchdowns (15). He’s also an unimpressive 21-30-1 in his career as a regular-season starter. In a league where Mahomes and Burrow and Allen and Herbert and Rodgers and Lawrence and Jackson are lighting up scoreboards and perennial candidates for MVP, there isn’t a lot of talk about Jones in those tones.
Chances are he’s even available in your fantasy league.
Slayton, of course, sees only the good from his teammate and is perplexed when others don’t. And yes, he has seen a reduction in the online vitriol aimed at Jones.
“Especially after last season, it’s hard to say bad things about somebody when they consistently do good things,” Slayton said. “He did a lot of good so I think there is definitely significantly less. But no matter how good you are there is always going to be somebody that has something to say. We play for the New York Giants so there will always be a little bit more dip on that chip. But it’s alright.”
Slayton said he has never spoken to Jones about his online hobby.
“That’s just my own personal thing,” he said. “To him, it doesn’t even faze him. Honestly, I don’t even think he knows about it. He’s never on social media. I don’t even know if he has an account. If he does, it’s probably like a ghost account … I just do it for the fun and to defend my guy.”
Now, though, Slayton, with the authority vested in him, has declared it high time for everyone to pick a side.
By the time Sunday night’s game against the Cowboys ends, there will either be a loud online chorus extolling Jones and his play in the win, or one ridiculing his performance in the loss. That’s just the way it is. It’ll happen that way, one side or the other shouting, for the next 18-plus weeks.
If you really want to have a spot on the pro-Jones side, though, you’d better have a ticket before that game starts.
The conductor is going to be checking them.
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.
