Quarterback is a controversial position for the New York Giants right now – Eli Manning is coming into the season as the starter but after the team took Daniel Jones with the sixth overall pick in the draft this year, many fans expect the team to get some value out of their pick early on rather than letting Jones sit on the bench for years before moving on from their current starter.
It’s led to quite a bit of back and forth, with different fans and different members of the media having varying ideas about how soon is too soon to replace Eli Manning and insert a new and unproven quarterback into the mix. Some have said that the team will probably start Jones as soon as the second half of this season, while others think the team would be smart to wait two or even three years before moving on to their new quarterback.
But according to newly signed wide receiver Golden Tate, the Giants aren’t in a bad spot right now.
“I’ve been impressed. I think we have a really good problem,” Tate said on NFL Total Access, after claiming that Eli Manning has a lot left in the tank. “We’ve got a Hall of Fame-type of quarterback in my mind and we also drafted a guy, a young guy, so we don’t need Daniel to come in and save the day. We just need Daniel to stay on pace, learn as much as he possibly can in a great environment and just take it day by day. We don’t need him to come in tomorrow and win a game. We just need him to stay on pace.”
That’s only the truth if the Giants do go ahead with their plan to keep Jones on the bench initially, and don’t rush him into playing during the regular season. It looks, however, like that’s the way things are going to go – But based on how last season went and how there were plenty of calls for Kyle Lauletta to be given a shot when Eli Manning performed poorly, it wouldn’t be out of the question for the fans to demand Jones this season, maybe shaking up the team’s plans.
After all, Jones is a more hyped prospect than Lauletta ever was, and there’s no guarantee that Eli Manning will have a bounce back year following poor performances in 2018. Although, a revamped offensive line looks like it will make things somewhat easier on the quarterback.
“What I can I see, Eli Manning’s got a lot of juice left. He’s still got some zip on his passes,” Tate said about Manning. While preseason predictions tend to trend optimistic and aren’t always representative of how the season will go, Manning has gotten enough praise this offseason that it’s still somewhat reasonable for the Giants to give him the benefit of the doubt going into this year.
One can hope that in 2019, Manning can hold on to the job and improve from last season, allowing the Giants to comfortably keep their rookie quarterback on the bench and focus on what Golden Tate spoke about: keeping Daniel Jones on pace rather than expecting him to win games.