Should Giants bench banged up Daniel Jones for Colt McCoy?
The decision was really a no-brainer for Joe Judge, as it would be for any coach of a team in a playoff race. If your starting quarterback is healthy enough to play, you have to play him.
But the way Daniel Jones played on Sunday sure makes this feel like a complicated decision for next week.
Jones was bad — really bad — in the Giants’ 26-7 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, which was their least competitive game since they were blown out by the San Francisco 49ers way back in Week 3. And Jones was a huge part of why it was such a disaster.
He was a miserable 11 of 21 for 127 yards. He fumbled three times, too, and only led the offense to 159 total yards.
It’s easy to assume that Colt McCoy, the Giants’ 34-year-old journeyman backup, couldn’t have done much better. After all, he didn’t offer much even as the Giants won in Seattle last week. But the problem is that Jones, coming off a hamstring injury, was a shell of himself. He was unable to run and couldn’t even really get out of the pocket.
That’s a huge part of his game. It’s a huge part of the Giants’ offense. And without that, the Giants were a one-dimensional mess.
“No, I have no regrets about playing him,” said Giants coach Joe Judge. “We made a calculation based on what we thought he could do as a player.”
“I felt good during the game,” Jones added. “I’m not sure it hampered (the offense) too much. I was able to move around in the pocket and do what I needed to do throwing the ball. I have to do better.”
Yes, he does. But in his current state, can he? The answer is unclear, which makes this a huge decision for Judge — maybe the biggest one of his young coaching career. Yes, Jones is better than McCoy. But if Jones is not 100%, if he aggravated his hamstring injury or it’s just not healed enough for him to be a mobile quarterback, is it worth rolling him out there as a one-dimensional quarterback? Or are they better off with a full-strength McCoy?
Consider what happened with a one-dimensional Jones. Knowing he was no threat to get outside the pocket, the Cardinals were able to tee off on him. The result was eight total sacks — six of which were on Jones — including a Cardinals-record five from linebacker Hassan Reddick. Yes, some of those were coverage sacks, but even that comes back to Jones’ limitations. He had no ability to get outside the pocket and give his receivers time to get open or draw some of the defense’s attention to him.
And then there’s the running game, which had been thriving in recent weeks. Jones’ specialty has been the zone-read, where he holds the ball close to the running back as he reads the defensive end before making a late decision whether to hand the ball off or keep it for himself. It’s a great weapon to throw a defensive line off-balance. Only against the Cardinals the Giants couldn’t run that effectively. When they tried, it was clear the Cardinals knew Jones wasn’t going to run.
The result of that was Wayne Gallman‘s worst day in three weeks. He finished with only 12 carries for 57 yards — 22 of which came on one drive in the third quarter.
Judge said the Giants knew Jones would be in no condition to run — that he was expecting that would lead to more throwaway passes and likely more sacks. The problem, though, wasn’t that the Giants knew Jones couldn’t run. It’s that the Cardinals knew it, too. And it changed everything about the way they played defense in this game.
“I think it could have,” Jones said. “Yeah, I’d like to look at the tape and see a couple of plays and see how exactly they played a few of them. But it could have.”
It did. Even Gallman admitted, “They did some things we didn’t expect.” And it’s fair to blame offensive coordinator Jason Garrett for not fully anticipating that and coming up with a game plan to cover for Jones’ deficiencies. But Jones didn’t help. He was off target on his passes, particularly early. His pocket presence was a disaster, as shown by former Giants linebacker Markus Golden‘s early face-to-face sack. Jones even fumbled three times, losing two, getting back to a bad habit that he seemed to have kicked.
So if he’s limited again in practice this week, if he the Giants think the hamstring isn’t any better, they may find better luck if they turn to McCoy. Again, McCoy isn’t very good. He was only 13 of 22 for 105 yards with a touchdown and interception in Seattle, despite facing the statistical worst defense in the league. He is clearly not the guy the Giants want running their offense in their first playoff race in four years.
But if he’s the healthy one, the Giants can spend all week tailoring the game plan to him — with play-action passes instead of zone-read runs, and short, quick strikes instead of deep throws. And remember, if nothing else, McCoy’s presence in Seattle was enough to get Gallman going. Maybe that could be enough next Sunday night against the Cleveland Browns.
It’s just a thought, of course. Obviously, if Jones if fully healthy and back to his old, mobile self, the job will rightfully still be his. But if he’s not 100%, and especially if he’s not close, the decision isn’t so easy. It would be a bold, gutsy move for Judge to bench his starting quarterback in a spot like this. And it would open a dangerous can of worms if somehow the Giants won, since as soon as Jones was fully healthy he’d have to get his job back.
But for one week, when every game counts in this bizarre NFC East race, Judge has to at least consider the unthinkable. There’s no doubt that Jones gives the Giants the best chance to win. But that’s only if he’s healthy enough to do it.
He clearly wasn’t on Sunday against the Cards. And with only three games remaining, the Giants can’t afford for that to happen again.
