Daniel Jones has earned the Giants trust — and money — in 2023 (and maybe beyond)

The New York Giants did not pick up the fifth year of Daniel Jones’ rookie contract. This decision, made back in the spring of 2022, made total sense at the time.

Jones had been a disappointment in his first three seasons in the league. After flashes of potential as a rookie, the former first round pick backslid. His play was notable mostly for the memes it generated. The Giants lost games, fired their coaching staff and looked to 2022 as the table-setting year to kick off a rebuild.

That’s not what happened. Jones, paired with the coach who’d helped make Josh Allen a superstar in Buffalo, took control of Brian Daboll’s offense and showcased the confidence and efficiency he’d sorely lacked early in his career. Daboll’s run-focused approach pushed a quarterback few believed in and a receiving corps whose top targets were Darius Slayton, Richie James and Isaiah Hodgins into the 2023 NFL Playoffs.

On Sunday, he delivered the franchise’s first playoff win since 2012. This wasn’t a function of a caretaker QB floating on the current of his defense. This was a game in which Daniel Jones, the quarterback whose most notable highlight the previous two seasons involved tripping over his own feet and stumbling to the ground like a baby giraffe, played undeniably great football.

LET'S GO!!

: FOX pic.twitter.com/j5ovl4PSR8

— New York Giants (@Giants) January 15, 2023

Sunday’s 31-24 win over the NFC North champion Minnesota Vikings was a microcosm of the value Jones has delivered all season. He:

• protected the ball, leading the charge on a day where the Giants turned the ball over zero times. This fell in line with his career-low 1.1 percent interception rate (best in the NFL)
• ran the ball effectively, crashing through holes — often head first — en route to a team-high 78 rushing yards. This fell in line with his career-high 708 rushing yards in 2022.
• elevated an unheralded receiving corps. Slayton, James and Hodgins combined for 16 catches and 224 yards.
• threw for 301 yards. Actually, this was a new one. Jones only hit that threshold twice in the regular season — though once was vs. the Vikings in Week 16.

The young quarterback thrived for a team eager to set him up for success. His offense didn’t just operate well in traditional sets — it got massive returns when it unleashed blockers in space because Jones’ guys absolutely wanted to crush fools who got in his way.

True to Daboll’s regular season vision, Jones wasn’t asked to do too much through the air. Only one of his 35 passes traveled more than 20 yards in the air. But when pressed into action, we saw the player Dave Gettleman hoped the Duke star could become when he drafted him sixth overall in 2019.

it is absolutely wild how Brian Daboll unlocked this version of Daniel Jones pic.twitter.com/Bva1zRMdzu

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) January 16, 2023

This leaves New York with a decision to make. Jones will be a free agent this spring. He’ll be a commodity in a league that values dual-threat playmaking more than ever before. There’s no chance the Giants would let him hit the open market after not only leading this team to the postseason, but to a postseason road win.

The exact method of how he’s retained is up for debate. Boomer Esiason says Jones and the franchise are close on an extension, but there’s no telling just how close they may be. If that isn’t hammered out before the official start of the offseason New York will use the franchise tag to retain negotiation rights and, at the very least, keep him under contract for 2023 at an estimated cost of $32.445 million.

There’s precedent for this kind of late-contract resurgence from a vaunted but flawed draft prospect under a new head coach. Blake Bortles had a similar outlier year while leading the Jacksonville Jaguars within one quarter (and one whistled-down fumble return) of a Super Bowl in the fifth and final season of his rookie contract.  Rather than franchise tagging him at a cost of $23.2 million, the Jags opted for a three-year, $54 million extension that turned out to be a one year deal that delivered $26.5 million in guarantees by the time he was released a season later.

A similar deal for Jones would be along the lines of three years and $76 million with $37 million guaranteed. But Jones’ agents will likely shoot that down for good reason. Bortles, at the height of his powers in 2017, was the 18th most-efficient quarterback in the league that season, per the NFL’s advanced stats — just ahead of Tyrod Taylor and behind Josh McCown. Jones clocked in at 12th.

That, paired with a Giants team expected to have the third-most salary cap space of anyone this offseason per Over the Cap, likely bumps Jones’ three-year contract range into the $100 million range. Would New York acquiesce based on one season of results in Daboll’s new offense knowing more receiving help is on the way? Or would management roll with the franchise tag and punt that decision to 2024 while assessing its other options?

That’s the question that will loom over the offseason, pushed back at least one more week thanks to Jones’ heroics. Brian Daboll’s arrival turned a streaky player with more cache as a punchline than a quarterback into a viable playoff starter. But at the same time, Jones’ game relies heavily on short passes and his mobility can be wiped clean something as common as a sprained ankle — and given how often he runs into tackles rather than sliding, a significant risk. This isn’t the passing chart of an impact passer who can keep safeties honest simply by glancing downfield:

It is, however, the passing chart of a quarterback who went on the road and delivered his franchise’s first playoff victory in more than a decade. Jones’ role in New York’s success cannot be ignored. The question now is how much it will cost the Giants going forward.