Daniel Jones is running more than ever, but with his injury history for Giants that could be risky

Daniel Jones made it through the pummeling he took from the Cowboys.

“I feel good,” he said Wednesday when asked if there are any lingering effects from being hit 12 times in the passing pocket and another nine times as a ballcarrier in  Monday night's loss. “I had a chance to rest up and recover a little bit. I’m feeling good and ready to get after it this week at practice and get back out there on Sunday.”

That hasn’t always been the case While each of Jones’ three head coaches have often touted his toughness as a key attribute and marveled at his ability to withstand the punishments that have often come as a result of leaky offensive lines in front of him, the quarterback has yet to play a full season without missing time because of injury. Leg muscles, ankles, a scary neck situation, they have all put him on the sideline at one time or another during his three seasons-plus in the NFL.

So far this year, though, protecting him from exposure to such dangers has not been something the Giants have been very good at.

In three games Jones has run with the ball 25 times, tied for the fourth most among NFL quarterbacks. That total includes those nine true carries against the Cowboys that tied his career high (technically he had 10 carries against the Panthers a week ago but two of those were kneel-downs with the game in hand). That works out to 8.3 rushing carries per game. In his first three seasons he averaged 4.5 rushes per game. Basically he is running with the ball almost twice as often as he ever has.

Jones has also been sacked 13 times this season, more than any of the four players who have as many or more rushing carries than he does. If you add rushes and sacks only Jalen Hurts (44) has been downed with the ball in his hands more often than Jones’ 38 times.

If he keeps up his rushing pace Jones will wind up with 149 rushing carries in 2022. Given his history that doesn’t exactly seem sustainable. It’s not exactly a fair comparison given their skill sets but in his 16 year NFL career Eli Manning never ran more than 35 times in a single season. He also never missed a game because of injury.

All of which presents a bit of a quandary for the Giants. Jones’ running abilities are clearly one of the best weapons this offense currently has, second only at this point to putting the ball in the hands of Saquon Barkley who leads the NFL in all-purpose yards. But relying on Jones too much increases the risk of losing him to a hit from an overzealous defender hoping to put a set of quarterback antlers up in his den.

“Daniel has a unique skillset in terms of his athleticism,” coach Brian Daboll said. “I think he’s done a good job of taking care of himself when he does run with it. I would say there’s not a lot of design runs in there. There’s a fair amount of scrambles.”

On Monday seven of his nine carries were him trying to get away from pressure. There were only two designed quarterback draws. Fixing the offensive line, in other words, should help reduce those rushing opportunities.

Ideally, Daboll said, the quarterback should never take a hit. He also said he does not want to have Jones purposely avoiding chances to run with the ball.

“If he has an opportunity to make yards you can tell a quarterback ‘Don’t take this hit’ or ‘Do this,’ but then they start thinking about things,” Daboll said. “I think Daniel’s making good decisions when to take off. He’s tried to protect himself. Is that always going to happen? No. But certainly you want to eliminate or limit the amount of hits.”

Maybe the Giants will try to do that moving forward.

Maybe they won’t.

“Guys that can scramble and make loose plays cause problems for the defense in the regard of keeping chains moving or making some loose plays,” Daboll said.

“I’ll never take that away from him.”

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.