New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones usually doesn’t get many kudos from the national media these days but sentiments could be changing.
Jones is entering new circumstances with the Giants in his fourth season. He will have a new head coach in Brian Daboll, a new offensive coordinator in Mike Kafka and a new quarterbacks coach, Shea Tierney.
That has not escaped the eye of the well-traveled veteran quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, who finally retired from the NFL after 17 seasons (a career that saw him play for nine teams) and will be a studio analyst for Amazon Prime’s NFL coverage this season.
Fitzpatrick had some interesting observations about Jones in a recent interview with the New York Post.
“Daniel Jones is an interesting one for me, because I’ve had coaches that have crossed over with him as well,” Fitzpatrick said. “And I’ve met him and know him a little bit. Really nice guy. But then to turn it over and say, ‘OK, well, how has he played?’ I think it’s been a tough situation. There have been a lot of injuries. There’s been a lot of stuff he’s had to play through. I actually really like his talent.”
Fitzpatrick said he mainly was surprised with the 6-foot-5 Jones’ athletic ability )i.e. his ability to run).
“I didn’t know that he was going to be as athletic as he is,” Fitzpatrick said. “But this is a make or break year for him. He knows that and everybody in the world knows that. So it’s not going to be a matter of is he putting in the work, because I know that he’s got a strong work ethic. But it’s gonna be about results this year. Is he going to be able to produce or not?”
Being under the tutelage of the men who made Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes into two of the NFL’s brightest young stars could finally be the impetus that tunes the light on for Jones.
“I’ll say this, you know, with his new coach, and what they’ve already been able to do with Josh Allen. You take a guy that was low-50s completion-percentage guy and [Brian Daboll] brought him all the way up to the top five — 67-68 percent, whatever it was (69.2 percent in 2020),” Fitzpatrick said. “That was Josh Allen, but a lot of that was also Daboll on what he was able to do. So hopefully they can get on the same page and get comfortable quickly, and I think Daboll is going to do great things for his career.”
