The Giants’ quarterback situation in 2024 is, as usual, an interesting one.
For the sixth year in a row, it seems like New York will enter the season with a plan to start Daniel Jones at quarterback while also hedging its bets a bit.
To wit, team co-owner John Mara reportedly gave his coaching staff and personnel department the green light to draft a quarterback with their No. 6 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, per Jordan Raanan of ESPN.
With a top-10 selection in a strong quarterback class, the opportunity is certainly there to add one of the draft’s top quarterbacks.
Unfortunately, a strong quarterback class doesn’t mean a deep one. Due to NIL opportunities convincing mid- to late-round passers to stay in school, this year’s quarterbacks crop is a bit top-heavy, so if you need to add a young arm to the roster, you may be forced to do so early.
It appears that seems to be the plan in New York. The team has hosted Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy and North Carolina’s Drake Maye, both favorites at one point to go No. 2 overall behind USC quarterback Caleb Williams.
Although it would likely take a massive trade to acquire him, the Giants have done their homework on Williams as well, sending general manager Joe Schoen to his pro day in Los Angeles.
Regardless of the work being put in by the team’s personnel group, the plan is for Jones to be under center in Week 1 of the 2024 season.
Mara has been adamant recently in his belief in Jones, citing the quarterback’s 2022 season as an indicator of what the 26-year-old is capable of doing in an interview with Mike Garafolo of NFL Network. This won’t stop the team from adding to the room this offseason as Jones works his way back from a torn ACL.
Still, this past season is also an example of what we’ve seen with Jones in his career. Including the 2022 season, in which he sat out Week 18 before the playoffs, Jones has yet to play in every game of an NFL season.
Ignoring the technicality of the 2022 absence, Jones has still missed 23 of a possible 83 regular-season games through the first five years of his career.
This season also saw the troubling return of Jones’ struggles with turnovers, though the team points to his injuries this season as the cause for that.
You can have all the confidence in the world in Jones, but it’s still smart to consider investing in a young arm in case the QB continues to miss games or in case the Jones from 2022 never shows up again.
In addition to voicing his support for Jones, Mara also backed head coach Brian Daboll after a turbulent 2023 season.
According to Connor Hughes of SNY, while he sometimes wishes Daboll would “tone it down,” Mara doesn’t believe that the coach acts irrationally and hasn’t asked him to change.
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