Brian Daboll non-committal to Daniel Jones as Giants’ starting quarterback

Optimists are going to paint the Giants’ 2-8 record, and Sunday’s embarrassing loss to the horrible Carolina Panthers, as progress.

Progress towards finishing as one of the worst teams in the NFL, which will earn them a top-three draft pick next April and likely land them their next franchise quarterback.

Pessimists – arguably, realists – can see that this worst-case scenario 2024 Giants season reflects deep-rooted organizational flaws. So a high draft pick guarantees them nothing.

Because there is no evidence, other than hope, that this current regime will correct the team’s surrounding issues to support that quarterback.

Because the last time the Giants franchise used a top 10 pick on a QB in 2019, they selected the guy everyone now can’t wait to run out of New Jersey – after paying him $82 million guaranteed the past two years, of course.

Daniel Jones is unavoidably at the center of it all entering this bye week, though, and the Giants’ plans for him in the second half of this season ultimately will go a long way toward determining their reality.

Including the fates of GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll.

For one, Jones’ two red zone interceptions and multiple missed opportunities on Sunday only reinforced that the Giants need to – and are going to – replace him.

They were already there: Daboll benched him almost a month ago early in the fourth quarter of a 28-3 loss to the rival Eagles and publicly blamed him for a critical mistake in the following week’s prime time loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Now the season’s irrelevance, the hunt for a high NFL Draft and the presence of a 2025 injury guarantee in Jones’ contract all point to Jones potentially being shut down for good this week.

Daboll wouldn’t commit to Jones as his starting quarterback on a Monday Zoom call.

“We’re gonna spend a lot of time here watching our tape and evaluating things, and we’ll do that as a coaching staff over the next week here,” he said.

So Daboll is considering a change?

“Well, I would say we’re evaluating our team at the bye week is what we’re doing,” the coach said.

The injury guarantee would be a major factor in a Jones benching. Here is how it works:

If Jones sustains an injury in any game, workout or practice on the Giants’ premises that prevents him from passing a physical at the start of the 2025 NFL league year next March, $23 million of his $30 million salary will become guaranteed.

Even without an injury, $12 million of that $23 million will become guaranteed simply if Jones is on the Giants’ roster on the fifth day of the 2025 NFL league year.

The Giants’ intentions clearly are not to have Jones on the roster next season. So risking an injury and that financial commitment to him next year wouldn’t make much sense.

Benching Jones permanently would be risky for Schoen and Daboll, though, because they can’t afford to bottom out down the stretch here.

The Giants have seven remaining games against the Buccaneers, Cowboys, Saints, Ravens, Falcons, Colts and Eagles. Some combination of Drew Lock or Tommy DeVito would start those games.

How many of them could Daboll win?

The head coach went on record on Oct. 21, the day after he benched Jones against the Eagles, saying he would stick with Jones as his starter because he “gives us the best chance.”

That’s still true, even though Jones and the team have struggled and lost five straight.

So what if the Giants shut down Jones for good – meaning he was no longer practicing or playing in games, to avoid injury – and Daboll lost five, six or seven more games?

Would Schoen and Daboll survive a 2-15, 3-14 or 4-13 season, one year after believing they were a 2023 contender, three years into their tenure, while letting Saquon Barkley walk to the surging Eagles as a free agent?

“No one is – myself, Joe, ownership, players – no one’s happy with the results and where we’re at,” Daboll said.

Plus, how would veteran players like Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Bobby Okereke and Darius Slayton feel if they believed Jones’ benching made the team obviously worse and was done mostly to save money and help the franchise earn a higher draft pick?

It’s a tricky spot, even though a quarterback such as Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, Miami’s Cam Ward or Texas’ Quinn Ewers looms as the possible prize on the other side.

On the flip side, what will happen if Schoen and Daboll keep Jones in the lineup as their starting quarterback?

There is no guarantee they’ll win any more games, obviously. They’re 2-8 with him playing so far. But if the locker room thinks Jones is still the best quarterback, they can keep the players behind them by putting the best team on the field.

Even at the risk of costing the organization millions in 2025.

And if co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch will tolerate only so much losing, continuing to start Jones might help the GM and coach put a baseline of competence on the field – while still finishing with a top 10 pick – to create a balance between self-preservation and future goals.

It’s an awkward spot for the Giants, but it’s one they have put themselves in through their own mismanagement of the team.

There was no more difficult answer on Monday than when Daboll was asked by a reporter: “Getting back to the quarterback evaluation, I assume the bottom line’s gonna be who gives us the best chance to win?”

“Yeah, look, again, we’ll go back and evaluate everything and decide what we want to do here,” Daboll said. “We’ve got a week to go ahead and really dig into this.”

When the answer to that question isn’t an easy “yes,” it’s not a good situation for anybody.