Daniel Jones was in the building to sign off on last-minute Giants contract

Daniel Jones was in the Giants’ facility on Tuesday, and might have actually been in the room, when the two sides hammered out their 11th hour contract extension.

GM Joe Schoen and Jones said Wednesday on Zoom that they got a deal done at either 3:53 or 3:54 p.m., just minutes before the 4 p.m. franchise tag deadline. They both described a tense final hour when neither side was sure they would find a compromise.

“It got a little dicey yesterday,” Schoen said. “As it was getting closer to 3:30, 3:40, there was a part of me [that felt], like, we may not get to the finish line. And in the last four or five minutes we tied a bow on it, luckily.”

Jones admitted he had some doubt at times, too, including a Monday night session that got testy.

“I think there were probably some points where you had more confidence and some points in time where you had less confidence,” the quarterback said, wearing a sweatshirt at the team facility one day after securing the bag. “But I wanted to find a way to work it out, and that was the goal. It was very much my mindset, and I’m glad we did. I’m thrilled to be back.”

Jones said “I was in the building” in that final hour. He said his Athletes First agents told him in person “where it was” with under 10 minutes to go, and “I accepted it.”

The quarterback then had dinner with some friends and his agents to celebrate.

“Yeah, I picked up the tab,” the quarterback deadpanned.

Schoen said the negotiations with Jones’ agents went for exactly three weeks and concluded with “nine straight days” of in-person meetings, shifting from the NFL Combine in Indianapolis on Sunday to the Giants’ East Rutherford facility on Monday.

Then Monday night went “late,” and they were “back in early Tuesday morning” to grind it out.

Schoen would not disclose how involved co-owner John Mara was in finalizing the contract. He simply stressed that he kept ownership apprised the whole time.

“John Mara, Chris Mara, Steve Tisch, I’ve got a text chain with them, I called them, I talked to them,” Schoen said. “I kept them abreast since the beginning of the process we started three weeks ago. So phone calls or text chains, just keeping them abreast on what was going on.”

Interestingly, while teams normally use the franchise tag leverage against players in negotiations, it seems in this case Jones’ agents used that tag deadline and the concurrent Saquon Barkley dilemma to force the Giants’ hands in getting to $40 million per year by Tuesday.

“I wanted to know we had our quarterback here and it wasn’t a franchise tag type deal,” Schoen said. “So to me that was a worst-case scenario, putting that franchise tag on him. But I also knew I had that as a tool. So the deal had to make sense for the franchise both short term and long term. And that was what was important to me.”

Schoen added that “the fact we didn’t have to put the franchise tag on him and the way the deal was structured and the years, I think both parties were happy at the end.”

On the flip side, Jones’ agents didn’t have to use Tuesday’s tag deadline as a deadline to get their own deal done. They might have benefitted, actually, by pushing the negotiations past that point.

That would have forced the Giants to use the tag on Jones, eliminating one of the franchise tags that teams are allowed to use on the player in his career, even if he had then agreed to a long-term contract one day later.

For the Giants’ part, Schoen admitted he obviously didn’t think he would be paying Jones at this point a year ago, when he declined a fifth-year option that would have locked Jones in for $22.384 million in 2023.

“If I thought I was going to be here a year ago, I would’ve done the fifth-year option,” the GM said with a smile.” But being around Daniel for the last 13 months and seeing him play and the fourth-quarter comebacks and winning a playoff game on the road, there’s a lot of positives that a 25-year-old young man just displayed throughout the season.”

Interestingly, Schoen also implied the Giants were paying Jones for the even better player they believe he will become.

“The upside, I’ve got a lot of belief in our staff and Daniel’s work ethic and their relationship that will continue to grow, and Daniel will continue to get better,” Schoen said. “If he’s just at his floor right now, I’m really excited about what his ceiling is going to be.”

Jones also demonstrated the same humility that helped him grind out his best season in 2022 against adversity to earn this deal. He described the emotion of signing this contract as “similar to being drafted.”

“It’s an opportunity to play, but also an opportunity to go earn it and to prove it and continue to improve as a player and win a lot of football games,” Jones said. “That’s my goal, and I’m tremendously excited about the opportunity. But there’s certainly a lot of work to do going forward, and I’m excited for that part of it, too.”

Both sides got something they wanted: Jones got money, the Giants avoided a long-term commitment with a favorable structure, and they both got to put a contentious situation behind them.

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