It’s been an up and down season for New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones, but week 10 against Philadelphia was one of his better performances. Jones avoided turning the ball over and helped the Giants to their firmest win of the season so far, bringing them up to a three win record and keeping them loosely in the hunt for the division.
It’s worth going back and looking at this performance in more detail, because there’s a few moments where Jones’ potential to improve with the team shone through.
34 yard rushing touchdown
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When the Giants drafted Daniel Jones, part of the reason they did so is the need for a mobile quarterback. Eli Manning wasn’t exactly mobile and it was said that Jones would be an upgrade in this area. And Jones has shown that this season, where the Giants have struggled with rushing overall – he’s still the team’s leading rusher, even at this point in the season.
The Giants having to rely on Jones in the rushing game isn’t an ideal situation but it did work out when Jones rushed for a touchdown against Philadelphia.
The offensive line opened up a gap through misdirection and Jones really showed off his speed on this play. The Eagles recovered from their initial mistake of falling for the bait play quickly enough that they could have made a stop. However, Jones ended up being too fast for them and outran multiple defenders to reach the end zone.
This play was pretty significant because it showed just what the Giants are getting with the more mobile Jones compared to strictly pocket passing QBs. And as the offensive line improves, we may see more runs like this with Jones going outside the pocket to gain yards rather than to avoid defenders who have broken through the line.
Deep sideline pass to Golden Tate
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This one comes in the third quarter when the Giants were driving down the field, and Jones showed good skills in a couple of areas. For one, he did a better than usual job of actually reading the field and finding his target under pressure. The pocket started to get pushed in on this play and by the time the ball was thrown, Andrew Thomas was already in Jones’ face.
Jones has been criticized for throwing passes that aren’t hard for defenders to intercept, but in this case Jones put the ball high up and ahead of the cornerback, ensuring that the only one that could actually come down with the ball was Tate.
It’s not the only play like this that Jones made during the game. And we can take these plays as a sign of Jones improving at both reading the field and putting the ball somewhere where it won’t be intercepted by the opposing defense.
The Giants take on another bad team that they have a decent chance of beating when they face the Bengals after their bye. Will the improvement of Jones continue then? We’ll just have to wait and see.