Getty Giants' Daniel Jones plans to seek advice from Bills superstar quarterback Josh Allen, who played under Brian Daboll for the past four seasons.
After the New York Giants set quarterback Daniel Jones up to fail in his first three seasons in the NFL, they opted to make a head coaching hire that could help him take the next step in year four by bringing in Buffalo Bills‘ offensive coordinator Brian Daboll as Joe Judge’s successor.
Daboll, who is the Giants’ fourth head coach since the start of 2016, built an esteemed reputation for turning the Bills’ offense into a top five unit in the NFL across the past two seasons.
Another impressive achievement on his résumé is the work he has done to develop Josh Allen into one of the best quarterbacks in the league. Once upon a time, Allen looked like a mediocre starter in his first two seasons, but after his 2019 campaign, Daboll helped him make adjustments to evolve into an elite signal caller.
The Giants are hoping that Daboll will be able to see similar results by working with Jones, who has shown flashes of promise throughout his career. And although Daboll doesn’t expect Jones to become Allen 2.0, he intends to put him in a position to be the best version of himself.
And as far as comparing the two quarterbacks, Daboll believes this is unfair and recognizes that he and Jones have a long way to go based off the work he had to put in with Allen.
“I think it’s unfair right now,” Daboll told NFL Network’s Good Morning Football show on February 1. “Josh and I were together for four years. It took a village to help Josh — credit first goes to Josh Allen and his abilities and his desires and his competitiveness. We got a long way to go.”
.@Giants Head Coach Brian Daboll joined the breakfast table and shared who a few of his biggest coaching influences are and how he plans to modernize the Giants franchise.
In the meantime, Jones intends on reaching out to Allen in the near future to learn more about the success that the Bills’ quarterback and Daboll endured together.
Luckily, Jones and Daboll are on the same page. Jones isn’t going to try to be Allen, he recognizes that he has his own skillset and potential to unlock. But Jones will still need all the help he can get in order to prove to the Giants that he is a franchise quarterback. And starting a conversation with Allen proves that Jones is willing to listen to different perspectives that will help him take a jump in his level of play.
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The Conversation
So what might this conversation between Jones and Allen touch on?
“I think just kind of general stuff on how they made it work so well. … How he went about building that relationship, and how he learned best and just made it work,” Jones told Steve Serby of The New York Post on February 1.
But as previously mentioned, both Jones and Daboll are on the same page as far as what they expect to get from each other out of this new partnership.
“Obviously Josh is a great player, he’s done a lot of great things in this league, and fun guy to watch, and a guy who’s had a lot of success,” Jones said.
“But my goal is not to be him, or try to emulate him. I understand I got my own skill-set, my own game, so I’ll try to be the be the best version of that, be the best version of myself. Coach Daboll has said that to me, and I think that’s what he expects. I look forward to learning from Coach, and obviously there’s a lot of things he was able to teach Josh, and I’ll look forward to learning from that, and try to be the best player I can be.”
Jones and Allen were both in Los Angeles this week for the NFL Honors ceremony, and Allen revealed that the Giants’ quarterback reached out to him to make plans to get together. Allen also discussed what Daboll will bring to the table for Jones and the Giants’ offense.
“He made me become not a yes man in terms of concepts,” said Allen, who attended Super Bowl LVI on behalf of USAA. “He would be like, ‘I need you to tell me the concepts you love and the concepts you hate because if you do not love this concept, we will not run it. We will get rid of it.’
“He’s going to put you in good situations and give you plays that you absolutely love and know like the back of your hand,” Allen said. “I think that’s part of the fight. He’s not going to call plays to fulfill himself, he’s going to call plays that will help you as a quarterback to make the right decision and make the best play possible.”
Allen went onto credit Daboll for having his quarterbacks reach out to signal callers that he has worked with in the past.
“Giving me examples from the quarterbacks that he’s been around, Tom [Brady], Brett Favre, even Chad Henne and Jake Delhomme, and giving me the tools to talk to these guys and have conversations about being an NFL quarterback,” Allen said of working with Daboll. “He gave me so many tools and taught me so much over the last four years, I’m just so thankful for him and I’m so happy for him too.”
Jones will be learning his third offensive system in four years since the Giants selected him No. 6 overall in the 2019 NFL Draft. While this won’t be a simple task, the hope is that a discussion with Allen will help him get up to speed at a faster pace and hit the ground running under Daboll.
More Coaching Staff Hires
On Saturday, February 12, Daboll added three more coaches to his staff.
The Giants announced that they’ve hired Christian Jones as an offensive assistant, John Egorugwu to coach the inside linebackers and Drew Wilkins to lead the outside linebackers.
Egorugwu has familiarity with both Daboll and Giants defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale. From 2015 to 2016, Egorugwu worked as a staff assistant with the Baltimore Ravens, where his primary focus was with the linebackers alongside Martindale. Egorugwu was also the defensive quality control coordinator and assistant linebackers coach with the Bills from 2017 to 2020, before joining Vanderbilt’s staff last season.
As for Wilkins, this move was expected as he spent the last decade with Martindale in Baltimore as an assistant coach for the Ravens’ defense. Over the past two seasons, Wilkins coached the Ravens’ outside linebackers as well.
In addition to bringing in Andre Patterson from the Vikings to be their defensive line coach, the Giants plucked another member from Minnesota’s staff in Jones. Jones served as the offensive quality control coach for the Vikings from 2019 to February 2021, until getting promoted to assistant wide receivers coach last season.
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Giants’ Daniel Jones to Meet With MVP Caliber QB About Brian Daboll