Analysis
10/3/23
6 min read
Daniel Jones, Giants' Offense Take Another Huge Step Backward
Points have been hard to come by for the New York Giants.
Under the bright lights of Monday night, the Giants managed to score three points in a loss to the Seattle Seahawks. They got into the red zone one time, and Daniel Jones threw more touchdowns to Seahawks players than to his own receivers. Nothing went the Giants' way from the first whistle to the last.
DEVON WITHERSPOON 97-YARD PICK-6!
📺: #SEAvsNYG on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/3ctCY8GbRh pic.twitter.com/UYoERSHHDq— NFL (@NFL) October 3, 2023
The entire Giants offense was called and executed like they were scared of themselves. Not having LT Andrew Thomas and star RB Saquon Barkley in the lineup will have that effect on a team, but that doesn't make it any less depressing to watch.
Giants' Passing Game Grounded
The passing attack never even tried to get off the ground. Not in any serious way at least. Jones finished the night with an average depth of target of 2.7 yards and only threw two passes beyond 20 yards. One of them was a desperation heave for an interception in the fourth quarter, which hardly counts.
Coach Brian Daboll built the whole passing offense out of screens, checkdowns and an unhealthy serving of underneath routes to Wan'Dale Robinson. That moved the sticks here and there, but it was never a threatening mode of offense. About the only time the Giants gave the Seahawks a moderate scare as a passing offense was when Jones took off running for his life away from pressure.
The Giants offensive line didn't give them much of a choice. That tied Daboll's and Jones' hands. Even with the reserved game plan, Seattle pressured Jones on 46.2 percent of his dropbacks, according to NextGenStats.
The Seahawks sacked Jones 11 times, one short of the modern NFL record. The Giants probably couldn't have let it loose if they wanted to unless their idea of a vertical passing attack is just running an arm punt simulator.
They were just as bad on the ground. No Barkley played a role in that, but the offensive line hardly gave New York's running backs a chance. Matt Breida and Gary Brightwell combined for a 20 percent rushing success rate. All those useless runs only served to put the Giants' passing offense in bad down and distances, making an already untenable pass protection situation that much worse.
Offense's Struggles Are Ongoing ...
It's been that bad all season, too. Save for a second-half explosion against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 2, the Giants' offense has been far and away the worst in the league. And they're bordering on historically bad, at least in terms of scoring.
Since 2004, the Giants are one of just 18 teams to score 46 or fewer points in the first four games of the season. That's about one team a year that is as incapable of scoring points as the Giants offense right now. Scattered throughout the list, you'll find dumpster fires like the 2009 Rams, 2018 Cardinals, 2005 Texans and 2010 Panthers, most of whom went on to draft a quarterback first overall.
Being a once-a-season kind of bad stings on its own, but it only gets worse considering what the Giants invested to get here. They spent the entire offseason doubling down on the paper mache version of the offense they kind of made work last season.
... And They're Likely Here to Stay
Jones "earned" a four-year, $160 million contract despite never looking like a franchise quarterback. The team brought back Barkley on a one-year deal; a questionable move to some given the perceived value of running backs. The Giants acquired TE Darren Waller from the Las Vegas Raiders to bring a spark to the passing offense.
In the draft, New York selected a new starting center and spent a third-round pick on speedster Jalin Hyatt. Even though it was the offseason prior, the Giants also invested in right tackle by drafting Evan Neal in the first round of the 2022 draft.
The Giants have an offensive mind running the show, too. Daboll, the so-called brains behind Josh Allen's rise to dominance in Buffalo, is the head man on the coaching staff. He theoretically built this offense in his image. After piecemealing things together last year, all this investment in the offense was supposed to let Daboll run wild with all the ideas he had when he took the job.
At least through a month, whatever Daboll is doing now is worse and less put together than last year's janky version of the offense. All of the creativity, misdirection and nonsense that worked a year ago is gone.
Now the offense has no identity and has probably put more on their quarterback's shoulders than he can handle. It's as if the offense has become less "how can we win football games" and more "how can we make Jones a real quarterback," and they haven't found a single answer for the second question.
Jones' Contract Hamstrings Giants
Now, if the Giants hadn't just paid Jones an obviously absurd amount of money, this wouldn't be a problem. They could move on, draft a new quarterback with a bunch of cap space to spend, and — voila — a new era has begun. But they paid Jones an obviously absurd amount of money, and they can't get out of that deal after this season.
Jones carries a $69.32 million dead cap penalty if the Giants cut him next season. That's an unthinkable cost for a franchise to eat just to get rid of someone. No team is doing that, not even if Jones continues to play like a bottom-five quarterback. Nobody is coming to bail the Giants out with a trade, either.
That dead cap figure drops to just $22.21 million in 2025, but that doesn't change the fact that Jones almost certainly has to hang around for the 2024 season.
How Can Things Get Better?
The Giants could draft a quarterback in the 2024 draft. If Jones is bad enough to get them a top-three pick, there's no reason he should still be the guy behind center for any amount of money. But then the Giants are stuck trying to build around a new quarterback while Jones eats away almost 20 percent of their available cap space. That's a bad spot to be, both as the franchise and the unfortunate rookie who ends up there.
The faint silver lining is things will get better this season. Thomas and Barkley will come back at some point this season, and there's a chance the young players on the offense hit their stride down the stretch.
"Better" isn't going to be "good," though. It's not going to change the outlook on the future with Jones behind center either. The Giants committed the sin of all sins by tying themselves to a middling quarterback, and now they're stuck with the consequences.
Derrik Klassen is an NFL and NFL Draft film analyst with a particular interest in quarterbacks. Klassen’s work is also featured on Bleacher Report and Reception Perception. You can follow him on Twitter (X) at @QBKlass.
