Last season NY Giants quarterback Daniel Jones showed flashes of brilliance. There are a number of reasons to believe he will be much better in 2020.
When the NY Giants selected quarterback Daniel Jones with the sixth overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, the expectation was that he would sit for at least a year behind veteran quarterback Eli Manning before being thrust into the role of the franchise quarterback for New York.
However, those plans went by the wayside when Jones was handed the keys to the starting quarterback position just three weeks into the 2019 season. The results were a bit of a mixed bag for Jones.
He would become the first rookie quarterback to throw for 350+ yards, five touchdowns, and zero interceptions in a game in NFL history when he did so against the Washington Redskins. In fact, a rookie quarterback has only thrown for 300+ yards, four touchdowns, with zero interceptions four times in NFL history. Daniel Jones has recorded three of those four games.
Despite only starting in 12 games in 2019, Danie Jones would pass for 3,027 passing yards, good for 21st best in NFL history among rookie quarterbacks.
The 24 passing touchdown’s that Jones recorded last season fell three short of tying Baker Mayfield’s 27 for most passing touchdowns in a season by a rookie quarterback, despite the fact that Mayfield’s rookie season he started one more game than Jones did in his rookie campaign.
Daniel Jones would break a number of Giants rookie quarterback records as well, including most completions (284), most pass attempts (459), highest completion percentage (61.8%), best passer rating (87.7), most passing yards per game (232.8), most game-winning drives (2), most passing yards (3,027), and most passing touchdowns (24).
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses for Jones during his rookie campaign though. He would be sacked 38 times, and his tackles would combine to allow him to be hit another 119 times on the season. In addition, turnovers plagued the rookie quarterback throughout the year, as he would throw 12 interceptions and cough up 18 fumbles on the year.
Given the poor offensive line play, the fact that Jones was typically pressing to rally his team back from multiple touchdown deficits, the plethora of injuries to his offensive weapons, the lackluster playcalling from former head coach Pat Shurmur, and the fact that he was transitioning from facing less talented opposition in college while at Duke University to the faster-paced NFL level of play rife with elite talent – the overall play of Jones as a rookie was extremely impressive.
That said, there are a number of reasons to believe that Daniel Jones is primed to make a significant leap forward in 2020.
Here are five reasons to expect Jones to be much improved in the 2020 NFL season: