After signing Daniel Jones to a four-year, $160 million contract in March 2023, the New York Giants decided to use Daniel Jones as their quarterback this offseason, basically His contract is now finalized through at least the 2024 season.
They had dreams of landing a franchise quarterback in this year’s draft and were hoping to somehow move up from No. 6 to No. 3 overall, but no team with those picks was willing to back down. There wasn’t.
Free agency presented several options, one of which was Russell Wilson. He wasn’t going to ride behind Jones, but he was the player the Giants were locking up. He chose to sign with Pittsburgh and is currently leading the Steelers toward the AFC playoffs.
Instead, the Giants decided to back up Jones with Drew Lock on a one-year deal. Lock was told Jones was the starter and agreed to sign him as a reserve.
Lock signed a one-year, $5 million contract. Wilson signed with the Steelers for the veteran minimum of $1.2 million.
On Tuesday, Giants general manager Joe Schon was asked if he would have liked to have done anything different at the quarterback position, especially regarding Wilson, who he visited with.
“When people become free agents and go through that process, you do your thing,” he said. “If there’s a good fit, they may come. If not, you can’t make them. So no matter what position you play, you go through the free agency process again. That’s how free agency works. And the players decide where they want to go and what they want to do. But some of that is outside of your control.”
Now in Week 10, Wilson, who took over the starting role from Justin Fields in Week 7, has led the Steelers to three straight wins and one win over the Giants.
Meanwhile, the Giants are 2-8, losing five games en route to a bye. Jones has struggled, and the Giants are “evaluating” whether to keep him as the starter. His contract has an injury guarantee clause that would cost him $23 million in the event of an injury.
It was clear last week that Jones not only performed poorly in the red zone, but also missed big plays down the field, which was hurting the game.
Considering the Giants are 1-5 in one-score games, if their quarterback plays better, they could be 4-6 or 5-5 this season instead of 2-8.
Wilson, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback who still has gas left in him, could have been that guy.
