Each week, as the Giants losses have mounted, the question is asked of Brian Daboll:
“Any change at quarterback?”
And every time the Giants head coach is asked about Daniel Jones, he voices support for his starting quarterback.
How long that support lasts, though, is in question.
Because the end is near for Jones as a Giant after six seasons.
And it should be.
Regardless of how diligently Jones prepares, that he’s the first person in the building and last one out, how hard he plays or how well he represents the franchise with class, six years with one winning season to show for it is enough time for everyone to know this hasn’t worked and it’s time to move on.
So, we’re drawing closer to Daboll answering that weekly question with an announcement that there actually will be a change at quarterback.
A loss to lowly Carolina on Sunday in Munich could trigger that change as soon as next week.
The Giants would be headed into their bye week at 2-8, riding a five-game losing streak with no chance at a playoff berth, and with Jones a financial liability to the team with a $23 million injury guarantee for 2025 that becomes fully guaranteed if he gets hurt and is unable to pass a physical in the offseason.
At that point, it would be Drew Lock time, with perhaps a little Tommy DeVito sprinkled in, for the rest of the season.
Sadly, Jones is emblematic of exactly who the Giants are seemingly every week — not bad, but just not good enough.
Jones makes some good plays — just enough of them to keep the Giants in games. But not enough of them to help them win enough of them.
If we’re using the Bill Parcells axioms for measuring a quarterback’s value — how often does he get his team into the end zone, and how often does his team win? — Jones hasn’t done enough of either.
He enters Sunday’s game with a 24-43-1 won-loss record as the Giants starter. And he’s thrown more than 20 touchdown passes in a season just once — in his rookie season, when he threw 24. Since then, he’s thrown 46 TD passes in 56 starts.
That’s simply not enough.
Even when Jones is good, it hasn’t been enough.
Case in point: In Sunday’s 27-22 loss to Washington, Jones threw for two TDs and ran for another — numbers that could win a player Offensive Player of the Week honors — yet the Giants still lost.
Jones’ timing with the Giants has been off since the day he was drafted earlier than he should have gone in the first round by GM Dave Gettleman at sixth overall.
That was followed by the carousel of coaching changes that stunted his development.
Then, in Daboll’s first year, Jones had his best season, helping lead the team to the playoffs. He was the best player on the field in the wild-card win over Minnesota.
That forced the Giants to give him that bloated $40 million-per-year contract after 2022. More power to Jones for scoring that contract, but he’s not a $40 million quarterback. Quarterbacks who make that kind of money need to be able to put the team on their back and carry it.
Jones has never been that kind of quarterback.
Asked Wednesday if he ever takes a moment to take stock in his career with the Giants, Jones said, “I think right now you’re just focused on this game. … There will be time to reflect on the bigger picture at some point.”
That point is fast approaching.
So, here we are: Two losing seasons removed from that playoff year, the Giants are right where they were when Daboll was hired — in need of a young quarterback for him to develop.
With team CEO and co-owner John Mara having stated that he has no plans to make a coaching change, next season will be time for Daboll to do what he was brought here in the first place to do, which is find and develop his own young quarterback.
Daboll has tried his best with Jones, squeezed all he can out of the orange. And he’s been nothing but publicly supportive along the way.
Consider his answer to a question about Jones on Wednesday when asked how he’s played in recent weeks.
“He’s made a lot of good decisions,” Daboll said. “He’s improved certain things that we work on. He’s got the right mindset. He’s pretty consistent. He does everything he can do every week to try to play as good as he can play the quarterback position for us.”
A polite response, but hardly a rave.
Jones has never been a rave-worthy player.
The Giants are in desperate need of a quarterback worth raving about.