It was roughly a calendar year ago that the New York Giants handed quarterback Daniel Jones a whopping four-year, $160 million contract.
Jones had just led New York to a surprise playoff appearance. Despite this, the contract was seen as eye-opening around the NFL world.
Fast forward a year, and things have gone sideways for Jones and his Giants. The former top-six pick from Duke started just six games last season and is recovering from a torn ACL.
It has led to some speculation that New York will attempt to find Jones’ heir-apparent in the upcoming 2024 NFL Draft. It boasts the sixth overall pick in the annual event and has been linked to trade-up scenarios.
This new report might give us a better understanding of New York’s thought process as it relates to Jones moving forward.
Related: 3 reasons why the New York Giants have to draft a quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft
New York Giants are “absolutely” done with Daniel Jones
Rich Eisen reported Monday that buzz during the NFL Combine in Indianapolis last week indicated that the Giants are “absolutely done with Daniel Jones.” He added more of a concrete report on the situation behind the scenes, too.
“Might have to play him this year, but that ain’t it, and they feel that ain’t it,” report on Jones. “The words I heard at the combine multiple times, two words were ‘buyer’s remorse.'”
At issue here for New York is the aforementioned contract. The team would take a $69.32 million dead cap hit by releasing Jones this offseason. If the Giants were to wait until after the 2024 season and designate Jones a post-June 1 cut, they would save a whopping $30.5 million with a mere $11.1 million dead cap hit.
This is the long-form way of saying that the Giants are stuck with Jones in 2024 despite his overall pedestrian play since they made him a first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.
- Daniel Jones career stats: 64.3% completion, 12,512 yards, 62 TD, 40 INT
In no way does this mean that the Giants won’t select a quarterback in the first round of April’s draft. They have been linked to LSU’s Jayden Daniels, among others.