Daniel Jones – YOU KIDDING ME!?

Wow. The only word going through most of us Giants fans heads when the pick of Daniel Jones was announced. I’ll be straight up and say it, it’s not what I wanted. It’s not what ANYONE wanted! The pick was an utter disappointment.

Sorry folks, this is going to be a long one, so buckle up.

Dave Gettleman has put on this act that he is the smartest man in the NFL ever since he became the Giants general manager last winter. And it’s looking more and more like a façade with each and every decision that Gettleman makes.

At first, many of us (Giants) fans wanted to believe in him. The Panthers weren’t long removed from a 15-1 season, and a Super Bowl appearance. The cautionary words of DeAngelo Williams, Steve Smith, and Josh Norman were noises in the wind and tossed aside as petty remarks of players who got cut in their twilight years or didn’t get paid because they’re overrated.

Man were they right and we wrong. It’s only been 17 months and, in that span, Gettleman has:

Traded multiple picks for an overpriced ILB who can’t cover
Misevaluated Eli Manning’s diminishing skillset in 2018 offseason
Used #2 overall pick on a RB instead of a QB of the future
Signed a 31 year old over the hill RB for $4m to mentor said #2 pick
Traded Damon Harrison and Eli Apple for pennies on the dollar
Let Landon Collins walk…..for nothing.
Traded star WR Odell Beckham Jr. for what many believe was less than his worth
Took a QB projected to be average in the NFL at #6 overall

That’s Dave Gettleman’s track record so far in NY, and let me tell you..IT’S NOT GREAT.

How could the Giants pass on arguably the best edge rusher in the draft at 6, when they have a major need for an edge rusher, for an average QB? Josh Allen is a fantastic pass rusher and is even strong in coverage. The guy can do it all. But the Giants passed on him for Daniel Jones.

This once proud franchise has been dragged through the mud the last 2 years. This is what low feels like. Being the laughing stock of the league. How Mara can sit by and let this happen, it’s absolutely ridiculous.

Daniel Jones has deep ties with the Manning family and Eli. Jones’ coach at Duke, David Cutcliffe, was also Eli’s coach at Ole Miss and Peyton’s QB coach/offensive coordinator at Tennessee.

What better way to transition from Eli Manning than to take someone with connections to Eli himself. Someone that Eli would be okay with grooming to take over for him.

This is not to disrespect Eli either. Eli is my favorite player ever, and I will love him forever for bringing two Super Bowls back to New York (beating Boston and Tom Brady in those Super Bowls was just icing on the cake).

It’s just that the apology crusade the Giants have been on ever since the benching of Eli is affecting the long-term future of the team.

I don’t hate the decision to go QB at 6. And honestly, I respect that the Giants did take Jones at 6 instead of trying to wait until 17. If he was their guy, then you go and get your guy. How they handled the pick was completely fine. If it was Dwayne Haskins at 6, no one would complain, in fact, most would probably laud Gettleman’s draft. The only problem is who they took at 6 and who they passed on previously.

The Giants were in prime position to take a successor to Eli in a QB loaded draft in 2018. They just went 3-13 with a 37-year-old QB who is clearly declining and had the #2 overall pick with potentially five QBs that could go round 1. With only one team in front of them, the Giants were guaranteed to get one of these stud QB’s.

Instead of taking the golden opportunity that was presented to them on a silver platter by taking Sam Darnold (who was my #1 QB in the draft), the Giants take the least valuable pick possible and take a RB #2 overall.

Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Saquon Barkley. The guy is honestly amazing and if he is not already, he will be the best RB in the league for a while. The guy’s a stud, plain and simple.

However, and I know it’s been beaten to death already, the value of a RB in the early rounds is just not high. You can get a similar return in the mid rounds for half the price. Meanwhile, a QB is the most valuable position in sports.

If the Giants do actually hit with Jones and landed their QB of the future, and they can pair him with Saquon Barkley for the next 7-10 years, then Gettleman and the Giants finessed the entire NFL and he deserves plenty of praise and more. But if he missed on Jones and Darnold ends up being what all Jets fans think and hope he will be, then Gettleman is a bigger joke than his Boston accent.

Jones forever will be compared to Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, Lamar Jackson, Dwayne Haskins and Drew Lock. The Giants passed on those six QBs to take Daniel Jones. If any of those QBs are legit or Jones is just not good, the 2018 & 2019 drafts by the Giants will be considered some of the worst decisions in football history.

For the record, I’m not here to say Daniel Jones will suck. I hope more than anything he is the farthest thing from a sucky player. I hope that I, and everyone else eats crow for the Daniel Jones takes. I hope that @OldTakeExposed has a field day with all the hot takes about Jones from yesterday. And even though I do not love the pick, you better believe I will be rooting for this guy every single week.

Just right now the pick is skeptical at best.

There’s a ton of stuff out there about how Jones isn’t a first-round pick and how bad he is, etcetera. I already told you I believe this was a bad pick.

But if you want me to talk you into the Jones pick, here’s the best I got:

Jones was on a bad team at Duke in a good conference (ACC). He had some of the worst supporting casts in the nation around him. His offensive line was brutal and his WR’s lead the nation in drops. Despite all of this, he led Duke to an 8-5 record and a bowl game win in his final season.

Jones has been taught by David Cutcliffe, who is said to be a QB whisperer and helped Eli and Peyton become who they are today. He is strong in the pocket and can deliver the ball accurately even with pressure in his face. Jones is advanced at reading defenses and knows where to go with the ball. He also ran a 4.64 40 at his pro day and is deceptively athletic and good at making plays with his feet.

Despite all of this, his mediocre skillset leaves plenty of doubt whether he can be an NFL QB or not.

I do give Gettleman a little bit of credit for his first round yesterday though. He drafted with conviction. Jones was his guy. Instead of waiting and hoping he fell to 17 or trading up from 17 to get Jones, Gettleman took his man first and without hesitation. If you believe in a QB you take them. Case closed.

This whole idea before the draft to get cute and wait on QB till 17 is a super flawed approach and way too risky. Hindsight’s 20/20 and I’m not sure the Giants expected the third QB not to be taken until pick 15, but we still have no idea if Jones would have gone anywhere from 7-16. Reports are NFL people like Jones more than the media. So really, who knows and that’s why you take him at 6.

As for the rest of the of the Giants first round picks:

Dexter Lawrence at #17 is an interesting pick. He was mocked right around the 17-pick range throughout the draft process, so, it was not really a reach to make this pick. And we know Gettleman LOVES his hog mollies. And that’s exactly what Lawrence is. The initial outrage I believe was because fans were anticipating a pass rusher the Giants so desperately need, and after the Jones pick, fans just piled on when they didn’t take one.

Lawrence is a solid pick though. The kids is a monster and will clog up that middle of the line for the Giants for the next 5 years minimum. The knock on Lawrence is he is deemed by some to be a 2 down player. If he indeed is only a 2-down player, then yeah it was a reach pick. You need more value out of a 1st rounder than someone who will only play 60% of the snaps. I’m not so certain he is that though. Lawrence has the ability to play in multiple fronts on line. As long as his conditioning is up, I can see Lawrence playing 75/80% of snaps.

The trade up from 37 to 30 to pick of Deandre Baker at the back end of the first round, is one that I love. It was a strange feeling last night actually being happy with a pick after being devastated at 6. All I could think of was the ineptitude of the Giants and here they are trading back into the first round to grab the first corner off the board.

And I love the pick. Baker is the exact corner type that excels in a James Bettcher system. He can play tough man coverage and be left on an island. Baker hasn’t given up a TD since 2016 (!!) in college.

It was a good move by Gettleman to attack and get the number one corner on his board. He could have waited and grabbed any of the number of corners that are still available in round 2. But clearly, Gettleman and company had Baker far and away the #1 corner in the draft and saw the opportunity to land him. Also, grabbing him in the first opposed to waiting to round 2 adds an extra year on his contract with that fifth-year option.

Overall, looking at this objectively, the Giants didn’t have the worst first round based on what they came away with. If you were to tell me before the draft the Giants would walk away with their QB of the future, plus two defensive players who could start right away after day 1 of the draft, I’d tell you the Giants had a fantastic one. You start adding in names of the picks and that’s when it gets ugly.

In the end, we don’t know yet how the Giants 2019 draft went. It could be as devastating and franchise crushing as about 85% of the fanbase believes. Or, there is the chance that the Giants just secured their future for a long time.

Will Daniel Jones be remembered in the same light as former Duke QB and Giants first round (supplemental draft) pick, Dave Brown? OR will he go down as a Phil Simms, a pick who was hated by fans when first drafted, but adored by fans and a Super Bowl Champion by the time he retired? Only time will tell.

And only time will tell on what Dave Gettleman’s legacy will be. Whether he likes it or not, this decision will define Gettleman’s career. He’s made multiple moves since he became the Giants GM that has left many fans, and media pundits alike, scratching their heads. But everyone gave Gettleman a little leeway with all of these drastic moves until they saw who he would choose to be the QB to succeed Eli Manning.

If he found the QB that takes over for Eli and makes the Giants competitive for the next 15 years, Gettleman will go down as the mad genius who saw the light when no one else could. If he swung and missed on this Daniel Jones pick, however, Gettleman will go down as the Boston man who came to New York and destroyed the once great New York Football Giants franchise and made them the laughing stock of the league.

Only time will tell.