Getty Daniel Jones #8 of the New York Giants.
Never one to shy away from a hot take, FOX Sports’ Colin Cowherd has assumingly seen enough of New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones to make the final call on his future with the organization.
“I would move off Daniel Jones because although I’ve seen glimpses of competence and glimpses of ‘he’s better than I thought,’ I’ve seen no glimpses of great,” Cowherd said of Jones.
The Herd host, who notes the Giants may prove to be worse than a two-win team this season, already knows the player he would replace Jones with under center in New York.
“Trevor Lawrence is the best quarterback prospect since Andrew Luck,” Cowherd said of Lawrence, who he deemed ‘no miss’. “As a prospect, he’s Andrew Luck, he’s John Elway.”
While Cowherd continues to spew unwavering affection in the direction of Jones’ intra-city counterpart, Sam Darnold, despite a horrendous start to the season, he’s been far more prone to waver on his takes of Jones.
Just three months ago, Cowherd admitted that he “was wrong” about his pre-draft assumptions of Jones and that the “dude can ball.” He even went on to highlight Jones’ impressive statistical rookie campaign, adding that if “Joe Burrow gets those, he will win rookie of the year.”
Jones Not Getting Much Help
There’s no denying that Jones has taken his fair share of lumps earlier this season. After leading all rookie signal-callers in passing touchdowns a season ago, Jones has failed to muster up much production in 2020, tossing just three touchdowns (T-17th-most in NFL) and owning a 74.1 passer rating (32nd-best in NFL).
With that said, as much as the onus of blame always falls on the quarterback’s shoulders, Jones hasn’t been dealt the best stack of playing cards since taking over for Eli Manning in Week 3 of last season.
Over his 14 career NFL starts, Jones has played just one-quarter of football with Saquon Barkley, Evan Engram, Sterling Shepard, Golden Tate and Darius Slayton all at his disposal. That number will not be built on anytime soon, as Barkley will miss the remainder of the 2020 season while Shepard has been placed on IR, scratching him from Big Blue’s lineup for at least three weeks.
On top of that, Jones has been sacked seven times over the first two weeks of play, tied for the third-most in football.
Follow Heavy on Giants for all the latest stories, rumors and viral content!
Coach Judge Doesn’t Waver in His Support of Jones
While the media may be ready to prematurely cut bait with a 23-year-old quarterback before even starting a full-16 slate of games over his career, Jones’ head coach, Joe Judge, is not. A former quarterback at Mississippi State, Judge is aware of the prolonged growth needed from not only Jones but his football team in order to set his quarterback up for the best success down the road.
“I think you have to keep in mind with young quarterbacks in this league, playing quarterback in the National Football League is the toughest job in professional sports, simply put,” Judge told reporters after Week 1’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. “You can try to debate that one way or another, I could argue all day long. That’s the toughest job in professional sports. You look at the truly great ones that have come through our league, without naming names, just think real carefully about how many of those guys were able to have high degrees of success before they had to truly carry a team?”
“Think about those real great ones that are going to be wearing gold jackets that have played in this league for call it 15 to 20 years. How many of those guys had the benefit of working with teams that were carried more by defense or the run game or a great arsenal of guys around him that supported him?”
The good news for Jones, the Giants’ defense shockingly ranks as the fourth-best unit in football, while two-time Pro Bowler Devonta Freeman has been brought aboard in hopes of softening the loss of Barkley.