Can Daniel Jones ride Saquon Barkley’s dark horse into the playoff second leg against the Giants?
The 2022 season is said to be coming to an end. Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones are two talismans of the Dave Gettleman era on their way out. Instead, Barkley reappeared after missing countless starts over the past two seasons. To the surprise of Giants fans, Brian Daboll also found the right fit for Danny Dimes.
Jones has been a regular disappointment at center since finishing seventh overall, one place ahead of Josh Allen. This season, New York rejected his fifth-year pick, however, the buzz around Jones has built with each win. Judging from the tune of desperate Giants fans after Sunday’s 27-22 win over the Green Bay Packers, Jones’ steady play might be enough to outwit the Giants to bring him back one more time. .
They should get rid of those thoughts before ending up with Jimmy Garoppolo 2.0 in hand. For the sake of the Giants fans’ sanity, they’re used to scoring Jones’ contributions on a curve. On Sunday, Jones was able to serve. He completed 21 217-yard passes in the game against Green Bay and nearly outstripped Aaron Rodgers in yards.
Against the packers in London, Jones lead the sixth comeback or his four-year career game-winning record and his fourth this season. In fact, Jones has used shotguns for three of his comebacks this season. Week 5 was his first time crossing the 200 meters in 2022.
Even if the Giants did win, Jones felt like the precursor to an offense The Giants could be run by any two-legged athlete with football experience high level. Forget stacking up his draft colleagues Kyler Murray and Josh Allen. Murray and Allen have thrown at least 200 goals per game this season and lead nearly twice as many comebacks as Jones per game.
It was Barkley’s 2-point conversion, a total of 194 yards from script and a missed goal on the Titans’ field, that pushed them past the 500 for the first time since 2016. In a Week 2 win of New York against the Carolina Panthers, Jones took 3rd and 6th. signed, but that’s against a team that is on the longest losing streak in the league. Jones threw a meager 71 yards in his win over the Bears last week.
Daboll was also wise enough to prevent Jones from broadcasting it too often. Instead, Jones was used in RPOs, as bait in the Wildcat roster, and as a utility player much like Taysom Hill. New York made the teams die in the first 5 games of the season unnecessarily. Jones should be commended for working with a dwindling receptive legion while avoiding negative levels. Jones has completed more safety-valve throws at narrow headers, full-backs and back-runs than he has done with wide receivers in the Giants’ final two goalscoring runs. Jones’ big 217-yard run on Sunday was the result of a short catch and run that Barkley took 40 yards in the game’s win.
The Giants entrusted Barkley to Wildcat to complete their quest to win the game. Jones is the poor man’s version of the Giant’s elite quarterback. Not fussy as an individual, a dull passerby, but a resourceful team project member. He won’t lead the Giants to victory, but he can still read Barkley’s directions from the passenger seat. It’s all about the journey, not the destination. The Giants should enjoy this start, but shouldn’t read too much into this and fall into the contract year illusion.
