After 70 games over 6 seasons and 185.6 million dollars down the drain, the New York Giants have finally given up on Daniel Jones. Jones has consistently been inconsistent and injury-prone. However, he’s always shown just enough sparks of potential to convince the Giants not to give up on him. Finally, after Jones's 2W-8L start this season, the Giants had seen enough, and benched “Danny Dimes”. This puts the Giants back in the quarterback market. Let’s break down their replacement options:
Option 1 - Replace From Within:
The easiest way to replace a quarterback is to replace him with the quarterbacks behind him on the depth chart. Nonetheless, this is often the least successful method. For the remainder of the 2024 season, the Giants are going with this strategy.
The Giants’ backup quarterbacks were second-year man, Tommy DeVito, and sixth-year quarterback, Drew Lock. While Lock has been a backup for the past few years, he was once viewed as the Denver Broncos’ potential franchise quarterback. Lock had a high-ceiling coming out of college, but never found his stride in the NFL. We’ve recently seen a couple of quarterbacks, such as Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield, with high ceilings, fail and then succeed on other teams. That is because a poor environment can stop a quarterback from fulfilling his potential. Drew Lock might be another one of these cases and may be successful if put in a good environment. However, the Giants chose to ride with Tommy DeVito, implying that they won’t be attempting to revive Lock’s career. In 2023, DeVito signed with the Giants practice squad as an undrafted free agent. When Daniel Jones got hurt, DeVito got the opportunity to start 6 games and made the most of it. Under DeVito, the Giants went 3W-3L, and under other quarterbacks, the Giants went 3W-8L. Nonetheless, DeVito has never shown the consistency to be a franchise quarterback and there’s no thought of him being a long-term solution. The Giants’ decision to play DeVito over Lock implies that they’re giving up on the current regime and will most likely go in a new direction this offseason.
Option 2 - Acquire a Veteran Quarterback:
Acquiring a veteran quarterback is arguably the most difficult way to replace a quarterback. That is because consistent quarterback play is at a premium in the modern NFL, which has made proven quarterbacks extremely valuable. This option breaks into trading for a quarterback and signing a quarterback.
To trade for a proven quarterback, teams usually have to part ways with two or more first-round picks. To make matters worse, a handful of these trades don’t end up working out. We recently witnessed two abysmal trades: The Broncos gave up three players, two first-round picks, and two second-round picks for Russell Wilson, only to cut him after two years. The Browns gave up two first-round picks and a fourth-round pick for Deshaun Watson, who has been terrible in Cleveland. On the other hand, the Rams gave up Jared Goff and two first-round picks for Matthew Stafford, and instantly won a Super Bowl. Trading many assets for a proven quarterback is a “high-risk, high-reward” maneuver. To minimize risk, the team should make sure that their roster and coaching staff are good enough to win now. Since that is not the case regarding the Giants, I don’t expect New York to make such a trade in the immediate future.
As previously mentioned, the market for proven quarterbacks is at an all-time peak. In accordance, this past offseason, we saw four teams give their quarterbacks contracts worth north of 50 million dollars per year (Jaguars - Trevor Lawrence, Dolphins - Tua Tagovailoa, Cowboys - Dak Prescott, Packers - Jordan Love). The total record of those four teams is 18W-25L and had the season ended today, only one out of the four would make the playoffs. Spending too much cap space on one player handcuffs the team’s ability to build their supporting cast. However, if the team is incredible at drafting, then, signing a quarterback and drafting the supporting cast works. For a fact, the three teams with the best records in the NFL all pay their quarterback north of 40 million dollars per year (Chiefs - Patrick Mahomes, Bills - Josh Allen, Lions, Jared Goff). In accordance, spending big money on a quarterback is only wise if the team has a reputation for finding talent through the draft. Since that is not the case regarding the Giants, I don’t expect New York to make such a signing in the immediate future.
Nonetheless, there’s a second approach to signing a proven quarterback. Quarterbacks who have been written off as “busts” are extremely easy to acquire. Often, a team will draft a rookie quarterback and sign a low-cost veteran to use as a bridge quarterback. The bridge quarterback’s job is to groom the rookie and stand in at quarterback as the team builds around the rookie. When the team previously had this veteran, this method works almost flawlessly. For example, Patrick Mahomes sat behind Alex Smith and Jordan Love sat behind Aaron Rodgers. Nevertheless, when a team signs a quarterback specifically for this, they must make sure the quarterback will be serviceable. This season, we’re seeing two examples, one of each extreme result. To play this role for JJ McCarthy, the Minnesota Vikings signed Sam Darnold to a 1-year 10-million-dollar contract. To play this role for Drake Maye, the New England Patriots signed Jacoby Brissett to a 1-year 8-million-dollar contract. Sam Darnold has played his role to perfection, leading the Vikings to an 8W-2L record, despite not being flawless. On the other hand, Jacoby Brissett was so awful that the Patriots’ staff felt the need to make a change after only 5 games. As a result, Drake Maye was forced into action before he was ready and before his supporting cast was prepared. As a result, the Patriots’ potential franchise quarterback has developed bad habits and has become a turnover machine, giving the ball away 9 times in 6 starts. If a team chooses to exercise this method, they must carefully select their bridge quarterback. Since the Giants need another year to prepare their supporting cast, there is a high likelihood that the Giants will choose to sign and start a bridge quarterback for 2025.
Option 3 - Draft a Quarterback:
While drafting a quarterback is risky, it’s the best way to build a roster. It’s risky because quarterbacks often fail to live up to their pre-draft expectations. However, it’s the best way to build a roster, because if the quarterback is good, the team has 5 years of cheap quarterback production. While other teams are spending above 50 million dollars of their cap space on their quarterback, getting good production from the quarterback position for approximately 10 million dollars is a huge advantage towards the construction of the remainder of the roster.
There are a few ways to avoid or minimize the odds of drafting a quarterback who turns out to be a bust. One of the most important ones is making sure that the team has good play-callers and a good offensive line. In Pro Football Network’s most recent offensive lines rankings, the Giants’ unit came in 27th, 6th-worst in the NFL. In accordance, the Giants should probably take some time to build an offensive line before throwing an inexperienced quarterback into their dumpster fire. Hence, while they build a competent offensive line, I expect the Giants to use a bridge quarterback to groom a rookie that they will draft this year. The top options in the upcoming free-agent market are Sam Darnold, who is the bridge quarterback in Minnesota this year, Jarrett Stidham, who learned from Tom Brady, and Marcus Mariota, who has 92 games of experience.
After determining that drafting a rookie to sit behind a bridge quarterback is New York’s best option, let’s determine who they should draft. The top two quarterbacks who are expected to enter the 2025 draft are Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward. For multiple reasons, I believe that Cam Ward is the better prospect and is also less likely to be a “bust”. Ward has better passing numbers and fewer distractions. On his way to leading the Hurricanes to a 9W-1L start, Ward has put up 350 yards and over 3 touchdowns per game. A lot of unwanted attention and distractions come with Sanders’ father being Deion Sanders. Since athletes already tend to struggle with the attention and pressure that comes with playing in New York, Sanders’ fit in NYC concerns me. In addition, Cam Ward has transferred from a small school to a larger one. This type of transition presents a lot of the same challenges and adversity that are presented by the transition to the NFL. Quarterbacks who make this transition successfully, almost always make the transition to the NFL successfully. A few recent examples are Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix, Joe Burrow, and Jalen Hurts. Cam Ward’s transfer has been flawless and I expect his transfer to the NFL to be just as smooth. In my opinion, the best possible situation for the Giants is if they have Jarrett Stidham and Cam Ward on their roster next year.
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