The New York Giants have made it clear that they want quarterback Daniel Jones back in 2023. The two sides will soon begin contract negotiations, working toward a long-term extension that will solidify Jones as the team’s franchise quarterback.
New Daniel Jones contract likely to exceed $35M per year
Daniel Jones is due for a nice pay raise with his upcoming contract. Two executives familiar with the quarterback market recently told SNY that the appropriate figure for Jones’s salary is believed to be somewhere between $35 and $37 million.
A salary exceeding $35 million would make Daniel Jones one of the ten highest-paid quarterbacks in the NFL (OverTheCap). The salary is also greater than the 2023 franchise tag value for quarterbacks ($32.4 million). Paying Daniel Jones in excess of $35 million per season would leave the Giants with little money left to spend this offseason.
The Giants have approximately $47.5 million in available salary space this offseason. Paying Jones will eat away most of the Giants’ space, making it difficult to finalize extensions with Saquon Barkley and Dexter Lawrence, while also acquiring free agents.
In addition to deciding whether or not to pay Daniel Jones his new market value, the Giants will need to decide how long they want his new contract to be. On one hand, the Giants may be hesitant to extend Jones for the long term and favor a shorter-term deal of around three years long. However, the Giants would have more financial flexibility on a long-term deal because it would allow them to spread the money out across five years, backloading the contract and lowering Jones’s cap hits for the first few seasons.
Daniel Jones had the best season of his career in 2022, leading the Giants to their first playoff berth since 2016. Jones totaled a career-high 3,205 passing yards with 15 touchdowns and just five interceptions, leading the NFL with the lowest interception rate (1.1%) this season. Jones also established himself as one of the league’s most dynamic dual threats at the position, rushing for career-highs 708 yards and seven touchdowns.
Head coach Brian Daboll got the most out of Daniel Jones in just one season with the quarterback. Another year in Daboll’s system with some improved talent around him could propel Jones to break out even further. After the Giants finalize their extension with Danny Dimes, their biggest priority should be to improve the talent around him so that they can maximize the value of their new, handsomely-paid quarterback.