Daniel Jones will enter his fourth season as the quarterback of the world-famous New York Giants this season, but the franchise is still unsure what they have in their quarterback. Jones has dealt with a plethora of obstacles over his time with the team, including horrible offensive line play, countless offensive injuries, three different head coaches and four different offensive coordinators.
He has also struggled with turnover problems and inefficiency of his own and has a less than stellar 12-25 record to start his career. With the upcoming season offering Jones the best offensive coaching staff, skill group and offensive line room of his career, there is no question that Year 4 is put up or shut up time for Jones.
It could be argued that Jones has the potential to be the second best quarterback in the NFC East, which is weak in quarterbacks, behind Dak Prescott and ahead of Jalen Hurts and Carson Wentz, but, to prove worthy of that position, Jones must silence the haters with on field performance. Let’s examine the four games where Jones needs to silence the haters.
4. Week 1 at Tennessee
There is no better way to show the world a new and improved Jones than by doing it in the first game of the season. Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka were brought over from Buffalo and Kansas City, the league’s two most explosive offenses, to lead the Giants offense out of the stone age which Joe Judge coached in.
Last season, Josh Allen threw deep ball passes 13 percent of the time, while, according to Giants beat reporter for NJ Advanced Media, Zack Rosenblatt, Jones only threw deep ball passes 6.6 percent of the time, the lowest in the league. His rookie season under Pat Shurmur, Jones was slinging the ball all over the field, so we know that he is more than capable of hitting the deep balls. With a young Tennessee secondary, Jones should have plenty of opportunities for deep shots.
Since Tennessee is not likely to be anywhere near as good as the No. 1 seeded AFC team they were a season ago, Jones has a real opportunity to lead the Giants to victory in Week 1, which would mark the first time the Giants were above the .500 mark since January 1, 2017. There’s no better impression than a first impression.