3 ambitious goals for NY Giants QB Daniel Jones

It goes without saying, but NY Giants signal-caller Daniel Jones is entering a major year. General manager Joe Schoen and the Giants’ front office decided to decline his fifth-year option, making it a make-or-break campaign in East Rutherford for him. If he performs poorly, the 24-year-old quarterback will most likely hit free agency. Jones is now under head coach Brian Daboll and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, with the two looking to set him up for success.

Jones has never caught on with the New York offense, but the root source of Daniels’ drop in production from his first season was likely Joe Judge and Jason Garrett’s play calling. Jones has only regressed since that first year, which was under the direction of former head coach Shurmur. That year, Jones tossed for 3,027 yards and 24 touchdowns, both career-highs.

Looking ahead to this season, Jones has a ton of pressure on him, but things have been looking promising for him thus far in OTAs. If New York is going to record a bounce-back campaign, Jones will need to deliver. In this piece, we take a look at three ambitious goals for the young QB.

Leading the Giants to a record around .500

The Giants simply have not been a successful team over the past few seasons, which included going 4-13 last year. New York has not won more than six games since 2016, the last year they made the postseason. They went 11-5 that campaign. If Jones wants to show he can be the quarterback of this team for years to come, he must lead the team to a record close to .500, with 7-10 or 8-9 seeming reasonable.

In order for that to happen, Jones will need to take a leap as a quarterback in production, and a big one as a leader. One of the most important characteristics of a quarterback is the ability to lead his team to victory. Thus far, the former Duke quarterback has failed to do so on a consistent basis. The NY struggles haven’t been solely on Jones, but he’s failed to come up big for the offense.

In order for a team to be successful, you can’t set your quarterback up with a bad overall offense, bad play callers and a lack of talent. Most QBs would also struggle with a similar setup. The Giants have been working on improving things over the last two seasons. Only time will tell if it’s enough for Jones to record more wins, but things are looking promising.

Daniel Jones will help the offense rise as a whole

Watching the NY Giants offense has been tough for fans. The Giants have consistently not been productive, failing to move the chains on a steady basis. This has been one of the biggest flaws on this team, as they’ve been near the bottom of most offensive statistical categories for a while now. This is on Jones to help change that.

Jones and the rest of the unit will now be working with Kafka, the new offensive coordinator in town. The system provided by Kafka, from the Andy Reid coaching tree, is one the Giants can really be electric with moving forward. When asked about one of the biggest things he learned under Reid, Kafka said “generating those explosive plays” and that’s exciting to hear.

That alone should be exciting for Jones, as he hasn’t been known for firing the ball deep downfield since he made his way to the NFL. That will change under Daboll and Kafka. Through taking care of the football too, Jones can rapidly help this team become more productive, which is something they desperately need.

Daniel Jones will throw for more yards than his rookie season

Since his rookie year, Jones’ passing yards have only gone down, the opposite of what you expect to see from a young quarterback. This does have to do with his injuries, especially in 2021. Jones missed most of the season due to his serious neck injury. The year before, he appeared in 14 contests for the G-Men.

However, the roster has improved and Jones should be ready to break his trend of going down in yards. Jones had a QB rating of 55.7 his rookie season, but then dropped to 54.0 in 2020 and followed that up with a 41.5 last campaign. Jones will focus on taking care of the football, while ‘letting it rip’ for Daboll and Kafka.

During his rookie season, Jones tossed for 3,027 yards and 24 touchdowns. Since then, he’s thrown for 2,943 yards and 2,428 yards, respectively. If Jones can stay healthy, he should have no issues breaking the 3,000-yard mark and topping his numbers from 2019. Look for Jones to set a new career-high in passing yards.