Daniel Jones lost his starting job to Tommy DeVito, and his spot on the Giants roster likely is the next to go.
Coming off a bye week late in another lost season, the Giants (2-8) benched Jones and bypassed season-long backup Drew Lock to go with the third-string DeVito as the starting quarterback Sunday against the Buccaneers in what will be the first of seven relatively meaningless games.
“Felt like this was a decision that we needed to make here,” head coach Brian Daboll said on Monday. “Try to spark things, change things up.”
Jones will be demoted to third-string, which essentially assures that he won’t play another snap this season and ends any risk of activating a $23 million injury guarantee in his contract.
The Giants can release Jones for a $22.2 million dead salary-cap charge after the season, whereas the number would increase to an unwieldy $45.2 million if he can’t pass a physical by March 16.
“Our conversations will remain private,” Daboll said. “Certainly [he] is not going to be happy about that as a competitor. And I respect that.”
Former general manager Dave Gettleman once said that it would take three years “to find out how crazy I am” for reaching to pick Jones at No. 6 overall in 2019.
It took twice as long as forecast and a lot of excuse making, but the six-year book likely will close with Jones losing 13 of his final 16 starts to fall to 24-44-1 with 70 passing touchdowns, 15 rushing touchdowns, 51 fumbles (26 lost) and 47 interceptions.
As usual in Jones’ tenure, the Giants have the lowest-scoring — or one of the lowest-scoring — offenses in the NFL (15.6 points per game).
“That’s on everybody,” Daboll said. “That’s not just on Daniel. That’s on me. That’s an entire offensive performance.”
The four-year, $160 million extension that Jones signed after his well-timed career year in 2022 — highlighted by a great performance in the Giants’ only playoff victory since winning Super Bowl XLVI in February 2012 — was a two-season disaster for general manager Joe Schoen.
He elected to re-sign Jones and franchise tag Saquon Barkley instead of the opposite, which would’ve had fewer long-term repercussions.
Daboll declined Monday to provide meaningful answers to lingering questions: Was Jones’ future here discussed? Why was he bumped all the way to No. 3?
Why was DeVito — who went 3-3 as an undrafted rookie when Jones was injured last season — not given a chance to compete for the No. 2 job in the spring and in training camp or elevated above Lock (one year, $5 million contract) in any of the first 10 games? Is part of the decision to regenerate excitement because the North Jersey-bred DeVito is a fan favorite who embraces his Italian heritage with a touchdown celebration? Was ownership involved in the decision?
“We have something to lean on by going back and watching him operate some of our stuff from last year,” Daboll said.
Schoen said last week that naming a starting quarterback would be a “football decision” and not strictly business.
Jones will remain with the team, Daboll said, and not leave as Derek Carr did with the Raiders when a contractual injury guarantee was at play in his 2022 benching.
“I won’t get into the particulars of the conversation,” Daboll said. “The coaches and I met every day last week almost and into the weekend. We evaluate the performance of the players and we made a decision based off that to go with Tommy.”
The return of DeVito has some fans panicking that the Giants will harm their draft position within the top 10 and their chances to select a franchise quarterback in 2025.
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But the move from Jones to DeVito increased the Giants’ odds for securing the No. 1 pick in the draft from 12 percent to 21 percent, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index.
Daboll and Schoen can’t fully embrace a tank for the sake of job security.
“I think we all need to be committed to doing everything we can do to close out the season the right way and just take it one week at a time,” Daboll said. “The only thing we control is our response [to] how the season has been so far. It doesn’t dictate where the season is going. We put a lot of time, effort and energy into this.”
Jones has had three different head coaches (Pat Shurmur, Joe Judge, Daboll) and five different offensive play-callers (Shurmur, Jason Garrett, Freddie Kitchens, Mike Kafka and Daboll).
Giants fans lashing out on social media and booing at home games made it known earlier this season that they are done with Jones, even though he is far from the team’s only flaw.
