NEW YORK — Daniel Jones has spoken to Joe Judge about the Giants’ desire to have him back as their starting quarterback next season.
But as Jones said Wednesday, the quarterback understands he needs to do his part.
“I’ve spoken to Joe, and we’ve had conversations about that. But I think there’s things I need to improve on, there’s things he expects me to improve on, and I understand that,” Jones, 24, said in his first interview in three weeks. “I obviously take that very seriously. So that’s my approach.”
The priority is for Jones to get healthy. The good news is Jones echoed the team’s optimism about his “neck sprain” healing with rest and treatment, although he’s been shut down for the rest of this season.
“I think it’s something that’s going to heal,” the third-year quarterback said. “I kind of ran out of time this season. That’s disappointing and frustrating. But I don’t have any concerns long-term.”
Jones said it’s a “huge relief” that he doesn’t need surgery. He admitted “there’s some swelling” in his neck, even though his range of motion is “fine.”
He said he has “no problem throwing, running or lifting weights,” but he’s “still having symptoms in certain positions” that doctors view as “problematic” if he were to take contact anytime soon.
That’s what prevented him from being cleared for contact by Dr. Robert Watkins of the Marina Spine Center at Marina Del Rey Hospital and Dr. Frank Cammisa of Hospital for Special Surgery.
Jones said he self-reported his neck injury after beating the Eagles on Nov. 28 because his neck was “pretty sore” and he “didn’t have a great range of motion.”
He didn’t think at that time, though, that the injury would end his season.
“Initially when I got hurt, it was something I felt like I’d be able to get over fairly quickly,” he said. “It didn’t work out that way, so that’s disappointing … I always had the expectation to come back and play. That part’s disappointing. But it didn’t work out that way.”
Jones said he doesn’t believe the injury will “dramatically change” his willingness to run, even though he got hurt going helmet-to-helmet with Eagles safety Rodney McLeod on a designed running play.
It marked the second time this season that Jones got hurt by lowering his head on a QB run, including his Week 5 concussion on a battering ram drive for the goal line into Cowboys linebacker Jabril Cox.
Clearly, Judge has told Jones that safely executing these plays, however, is one of the improvements he must show to function as an NFL quarterback.
“I think we’ve talked about being smart and going down, going down earlier, protecting myself, protecting the ball,” Jones said. “I think those are things I’ll continue to work on and [are] certainly emphasized by this.”
Judge did throw his support behind Jones as the Giants’ quarterback into 2022 when he said last week: “I feel good about Daniel already. I want him to keep growing and developing his craft. He’s a great asset to our team. Daniel’s done a good job growing for us. We’re going to keep on pushing forward with him.”
That said, Jones has a 12-25-0 career record and 50 total touchdowns to 49 turnovers in 38 games and 37 starts. He threw only 11 TD passes to 10 INTs in 14 games last season. He threw just 10 TD passes to seven INTs in 11 games this fall.
And he went 4-7 as a starter this season when he and the Giants’ offense were supposed to start turning a corner. That’s what bothers Jones; not the personal stats.
“Well, we didn’t win enough games,” Jones said of this 2021 season. “I think that’s the most important thing as I evaluate myself. I do feel like I improved as a player. I think I’ve made progress and played well at times — obviously not well enough plenty [of times], too, because we didn’t play well enough.”
“We didn’t win games,” he concluded. “That’s the most important thing I think as I evaluate myself and look to work on things going into the offseason.”
The Giants own two first-round picks, theirs and Chicago’s. And veterans such as Seattle’s Russell Wilson may be available on the trade market. So Jones could have competition or even be leapfrogged this offseason, depending on how the Giants proceed.
On Monday, Judge seemingly had uncharacteristically punted a question about the Giants’ decision this spring to pick up Jones’ fifth-year option for 2023.
“In terms of the business aspect of it and different things, I’ll let different departments of this organization handle that stuff,” Judge said. “I’ll coach the players.”
But on Wednesday, Judge clarified that he will remain involved in personnel. He just doesn’t want to be involved in contracts, and he has a reason for it.
“It’s tough to coach a player and have the players understand and truly believe that you’re playing the best players all the time when you’ve had to negotiate a contract,” Judge said. “After you negotiate with someone and get them on the field, sometimes there’s a little bit of an incentive that ‘I had to go through all of this to get this guy here and now I’ve got to play him to justify that.’ I don’t want to ever be in that situation. I’m going to play the best players based on how they’re playing. That’s what we’re always going to do here.”
So now it’s up to Jones, once he gets healthy, to prove to Judge next spring and summer that he remains the best player at his position for the Giants.
