GLENDALE, ARIZONA - SEPTEMBER 17: Daniel Jones #8 of the New York Giants celebrates a touchdown with ... [+]
A year ago, the New York Giants were counting on Daniel Jones and Darren Waller to lead them further than the division playoff appearance the team had reached, unexpectedly, in 2022.
Heading into 2024, the Giants didn’t even utilize Jones in 11-on-11 drills in OTAs this past week, while Waller was nowhere to be found outside of his music video featuring a pretend Kelsey Plum, weeks after the two split up.
2024 is different, in other words. But not necessarily worse. Not after the Giants addressed multiple needs in the 2024 NFL Draft and came to OTAs ready to perform. Not on the heels of a 6-11 season that sowed doubts about much of the progress on the field in 2022.
The Giants have placed their 2024 season squarely on Jones’ shoulders, and head coach Brian Daboll has maintained a truly day-to-day approach with Jones. So in these minicamps, we’ve seen Jones play in seven-on-seven, but not 11-on-11 — a function of safety, fewer bodies to trip over — while his movement on rollouts, in particularly, has been gratifying for the New York staff to see.
“I'd say he's getting closer and closer,” Daboll said of Jones. “He's only 6 1/2 months out, so he's kind of right on schedule in terms of his rehab plan where we have him.”
But 11-on-11?
“It's something we've talked about. We're not at that point yet.”
But Jones was out there without a brace, and told reporters he had no doubt he’d be a full go for day one of training camp, though he clearly knows that means he cannot suffer any setbacks.
“I would say about where I hoped to be,” Jones told reporters last week of his current status. “We've done a good job kind of adjusting the schedule based off of what I'm able to do. Every week I'm able to do a little bit more. The schedule can change or progress kind of as I'm progressing, which I think has been the right way to do it. I feel good. I think I'm in a good spot.”
New York has a fallback plan for Jones, along with last year’s breakout star, Tommy DeVito, in veteran quarterback Drew Lock.
“I kind of feel like I'm old now, year six,” Lock told reporters Thursday. “Learning the offense, this is going to be, I think, my fourth one so far. So I feel like I have a good process of like how I want to attack a playbook and attack these days right now, which makes it easier to be able to help those guys and be able to talk to the receivers. And not just the young guys, but I'm out here running these guys with guys that I haven't thrown to much. So try to figure out what they were thinking on this, what I was thinking, and just trying to develop some chemistry.”
The Giants also received good news out of the OTAs in the return of Darius Slayton, whose future with the team had been murky. He was under contract, however, something Daboll had noted in previous media sessions when asked about it, seeming more optimistic than he was on Waller, who has been mulling retirement.
“ I would say the same thing I said last month, let Darren take what he needs to take and once the decision is made, we'll go from there,” Daboll said.
The Giants aren’t built as if Waller is coming back, though, between returning Daniel Bellinger, free agent acquisition Jack Stoll and the just-drafted Theo Johnson.
The easiest way to understand why the Giants are more prepared with contingency plans is how much general manager Joe Schoen has been able to let the passage of time wipe away more and more dead money from the Giants’ salary cap left from the previous administration. The Giants entered the 2024 offseason 13th in the league in cap space. In 2023? They’d been 28th.
This matters. The NFL isn’t a league where every Plan A pans out — not amid so many injuries and pieces that don’t always fit as designed. Even that, right now, can be viewed as a positive from a Giants team eager to make 2024 a lot more like 2022, and surprise people positively, than 2023, which surprised fans who put New York further ahead in their rebuild plan based on the 2022 success.
“I think, when you look at those young pieces, they're at positions of impact, and I think this is an opportunity for all those guys to take another level and take a step in a way that you could say, okay, maybe year one, year two, it was starting to turn, and we're going through some growing pains,” Brown said of where the Giants are on the success arc. “But we expect there to be a jump in performance from guys that may not be household names, but we know that we feel good about as they're developing as young guys, like I said, at under 28 years old, which is to me always a sweet spot.”
