The New York Giants have had a quarterback debate in the making ever since Daniel Jones showed up looking good in his first preseason game, throwing for one touchdown and completing all of his passes. It remains to be seen how Jones will play in the future but at least right now it’s generated a bit of urgency for Eli Manning, the team’s starter who not everyone is entirely happy with.
There’s plenty of people who would be happy to see the Giants give Jones a chance in his rookie season, but one high profile player disagrees with that assessment of the QB battle. That player would be Super Bowl winning center Shaun O’Hara, who of course has a pretty decent knowledge of the quarterback position at this point after serving as the center for Eli Manning for many years.
“I think that’s perfect case scenario. When they drafted Daniel Jones, it wasn’t to help them win Week 1, it was for the future,” O’Hara said on NFL Network, on the subject of keeping Jones on the bench for the entire year and sticking with Eli Manning.
“You hear John Mara talking about that. What that tells me is, inside that locker room, inside that building, they believe in Eli and the best thing for the Giants right now is the fact that Eli’s having a great camp — it’s the one thing that nobody’s talking about. Every single time I’ve been at camp, he’s been lighting it up,” O’Hara added.
The Giants have confirmed Manning as the starter a number of times but it doesn’t stop speculation about the team making a switch during the season, especially if they don’t play well.
“Yes, I’ve seen with my own eyes and I’ve also heard it from Pat Shurmur when I talk to him and Dave Gettleman when I talk to him. Both of them directly unsolicited said ‘Eli looks great and he’s playing great.’ If he wasn’t, this is a different conversation.”
Manning hasn’t had a chance to play in the regular season, and there’s a chance, however, that the first four games are somewhat rough with Golden Tate suspended and Sterling Shepard attempting to bounce back from a fractured thumb. It’s unknown how these factors will affect the team or how they’ll play in the early weeks, and as Giants fans saw firsthand in 2018, all it takes is a string of bad weeks for the pressure to rise greatly on a quarterback that’s had a hard time winning in recent years.
For now, we’ll just have to see how the team continues to play in the preseason – if Jones continues putting together performances like his one against the Jets, that pressure on Manning will increase… Rightfully or not, and whether the team management wants it to or not.