Voluntary workouts might have voluntary in the name, but that doesn’t mean that many teams don’t consider them serious business. Those workouts are the biggest thing to keep an eye on right now for followers of the New York Giants, and it’s also the first chance to see how new players such as Daniel Jones stack up against others on the current roster. Jones is one of the players who showed up to voluntary workouts, but his position so far isn’t quite what everyone expected.
While Jones was drafted to play behind Eli Manning, the Giants are in no rush to put him in that role from the very start. Rather, he finds himself behind Alex Tanney, who bounced between being the team’s second and third string quarterback during the disaster of a 2018 season. Jones is the third player in the rotation according to Dan Duggan, with Manning obviously the number one and Tanney behind him.
Today was the first full-team voluntary workouts with rookies joining the vets. Few notes, per source:
QB1: Eli, QB2: Tanney, QB3: Jones. Lauletta didn’t participate as he recovers from knee injury. Dungey worked with TEs.
Mike Remmers was in the building but didn’t participate.— Dan Duggan (@DDuggan21) May 13, 2019
Of course, Kyle Lauletta isn’t in the running at all right now, as he is still recovering from injury. When Lauletta is healthy, there’s expected to be at least some competition between him and the other quarterbacks on the roster, most notably fellow rookie Jones, who could be seen as a replacement for Lauletta in the team’s long term plans. The fact that Lauletta is coming off of injury while Jones is healthy doesn’t help his chances to stay in those plans.
Eric Dungey joined the team as an undrafted free agent and is one of the more interesting additions during this offseason because of his versatility and success in college, but currently is working out with the tight ends rather than the quarterbacks. That ability to potentially fit into multiple roles or even positions is one of the reasons Dungey was sought after by multiple teams during undrafted free agency before eventually choosing the Giants.
It’s still early in the offseason and as we approach training camp and the preseason, that order of quarterbacks could easily change. It’s clear, however, that the team isn’t going with a rushed approach with the rookie Daniel Jones.