Giants GM addresses futures of Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley

New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen held his end-of-season news conference on Monday morning and insisted he has the same faith in quarterback Daniel Jones as he did when the club signed Jones in March 2023 to a four-year contract that could be worth up to $160M. 

"It's football, and guys get hurt," Schoen said about Jones' injury woes, as shared by Ryan Chichester of Audacy. "You can't always predict it. I think guys that have previous injuries, you gotta look at the injuries individually, what they were and how they were caused. I have a lot of faith in our training staff as well."

Jones played poorly and missed three games during the first half of this season because of a neck injury after a similar setback cost him the final six contests of the 2021 campaign. The 26-year-old then went down with a torn ACL on Nov. 5. 

New York reportedly can escape Jones' deal as soon as after next season. 

"Hopefully he’ll be back for Week 1," Schoen added about Jones. "We don’t have a crystal ball here, but we’ll continue to build the team the way we see best." 

Per Danny Abriano of SNY, Schoen acknowledged he likely will acquire a quarterback this offseason via the draft or free agency. Ryan Wilson and Chris Trapasso of CBS Sports both predicted in their latest mock drafts that Schoen will land Jones' eventual replacement in the first round of this year's player-selection process. 

As for Saquon Barkley, Schoen suggested the team could use the franchise tag to retain the star running back's rights for a second straight year. Such a move would cost the Giants roughly $12.1M for 2024 unless the two sides came to an agreement on a long-term deal. 

Barkley signed an adjusted tag to report to training camp on time this past summer. 

"Saquon and I will talk about that. That's a tool that we have at our disposal," Schoen said about potentially using the tag on Barkley before the new league year opens in March. "When we redid his deal before he came to camp, that wasn’t taken out of that deal. It wasn’t, 'Hey, we’ll do this, but no franchise tag,' so that’s an option we have on the table."