Don’t bristle at what Daniel Jones’ scruffy new look could mean for the Giants

For much of the spring, Daniel Jones sported a scruffy look, his facial hair clearly indicating his relationship with his razor was no longer a daily interaction.

And then, on June 11, for the start of the mandatory minicamp, Jones appeared at the Giants team facility as a clean-shaven quarterback. The boyish features were back.

He smiled sheepishly when asked about his brush-up. It was picture day yesterday, he explained. “Had to clean it up a little bit,’’ he said. “It was just time to clean it up.’’

This was the Daniel Jones the Giants have come to know since his arrival in 2019. Do the right thing. Do what is expected. When it was time for the official team headshots to be taken, Jones was not going to get photographed looking as if he hadn’t shaved in a week. He wanted to look neat and trim, like an executive. Professional.

“We’ll see,’’ he said, when asked whether it was the last we would see of any semblance of a beard.

Now we’re in the middle of training camp and, lo and behold, Grizzly Jones is under center. The 27-year-old is sporting a full, dark beard, and just like that, his appearance is, well, different.

Does he look meaner? Tougher? Older? Based on social media comments, the new look seems to be garnering positive reviews.

Does this matter? Is full growth on a face correlated to full growth of a quarterback on the field? If so, Ryan Fitzpatrick and his caveman stylings would be in the Hall of Fame.

This is more about state of mind and attitude and how Jones is approaching this season. If he is feeling confident enough to let his hair down, perhaps this will lead to a more free-flowing athlete on the field.

There is no debate about the importance of the 2024 season for Jones. It is not hyperbole to state he is playing for his future with the franchise that made him the No. 6 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. Joe Schoen was not the general manager at that time, but Schoen was in charge last year, when he signed off on a four-year, $160 million deal for Jones.

It was evident Schoen was making a two-year commitment to Jones: The Giants can get out of the contract after the coming season for a workable dead-cap charge of $22.1 million.

Though Jones has an unsettling injury history (two neck issues and a torn ACL), his recovery from reconstructive knee surgery this offseason was impressive. He has not shown any limitations this summer. And while he has had good days and not-as-good days in camp working against his own defense, he stood tall and mostly delivered the ball where it needed to go in two joint practices with the Lions. He is on schedule to start on Saturday against the Texans in Houston, where we will get our first look at Jones in live action, post-surgery.

Already, Jones has made an impression on the newcomers. His teammates got into seeing him shove a Lions defensive lineman during one of the many scuffles during last week’s joint practices, even if Brian Daboll instructed his quarterback to “just stay out.’’

When running back Devin Singletary, who previously had Josh Allen (with the Bills) and C.J. Stroud (with the Texans) as his quarterbacks, arrived, he did not want to carry any preconceived opinions about Jones.

“I like to meet someone first before I make any assumptions,’’ Singletary said.

And now?

“For me personally, he’s a dawg,’’ Singletary said. “He comes to work every day. Definitely a playmaker. I feel like we’re going to have a lot of fun this year with him.’’

A dawg?

“Yeah, just the way he attacks every day,’’ Singletary said. “In practice, on the field, how he goes about his business. You know a dawg when you see a dawg.’’

That’s what Singletary believes he saw when Jones did not back down from an altercation with the Lions.

“I mean, that’s definitely one way,’’ Singletary said. “Of course, we don’t want him in that situation, but that’s definitely one example.’’

Jones admitted he did not enjoy or appreciate seeing on “Hard Knocks’’ how interested the Giants were in trading up in the 2024 draft to get in position to take LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels or, more realistically, North Carolina’s Drake Maye. The episode served as a public acknowledgement that this front office and coaching staff was looking to replace him.

When no trade was forthcoming, the Giants helped Jones by selecting wide receiver Malik Nabers, who figures to be the most talented and explosive target Jones has ever played alongside.

The odds are stacked against him. According to BetColorado.com, Jones is the fourth most-likely quarterback in the NFL to get benched this season, with a 12.5 percent chance of that happening. Ahead of him on the list: Jarrett Stidham of the Broncos (25 percent), Sam Darnold of the Vikings (18.2 percent) and Jacoby Brissett of the Patriots (18.2 percent).

Still, the Giants don’t have a youngster on the roster waiting in the wings. Drew Lock was signed to serve as the backup and nothing that has happened this summer has changed that evaluation. The No. 3 quarterback, Tommy DeVito, is not viewed as a viable starting option.

This is Jones’ team, for this season, as long as he stays healthy.

Does he come out Sept. 8 against the Vikings for the season opener as the clean-shaven competitor we have previously seen in action or is there more of an edge to his appearance? Hair today to avoid being gone tomorrow?

Long way from home

If it seems a bit strange that the Giants are traveling all the way to Houston for a preseason game, trust your instincts. It is.

Going so far for a summer game that does not count is not standard operating procedure.

From 1978 through 2019 (there were no preseason games in 2020 because of COVID), the Giants played four preseason games each summer. At least one of the games was at home. One was with the Jets, so no travel. Another, usually Game No. 4, was against the Patriots, meaning regional travel. And one usually entailed a short flight — Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Carolina — and certainly no farther away than Florida. The Giants stayed in the Eastern time zone to play these exhibition games.

A trip to Houston, where the Giants face the Texans on Saturday afternoon at NRG Stadium, is not the norm. It will be the farthest the Giants have traveled from New Jersey for a preseason game in 30 years.

In Aug. 1994, the Giants spent an entire week in Germany, hunkered down in Berlin for several days of training camp practice before facing the San Diego Chargers in the third preseason game that summer for both teams.

An unforgettable trip

The Giants’ trip in ’94 was part of the NFL’s exploration of the international market, a series called the American Bowl that stretched from 1986 to 2005, featuring at least one preseason game per year in another country.

The Giants took their entire expanded summer roster and an extended travel party to Berlin. The team practiced at the Maifeld, a sprawling lawn outside the Olympiapark. The game was played at the site of the 1936 Olympics.

This was an especially poignant trip for Marty Glickman, the beloved former Giants radio announcer, who qualified for the 1936 Olympics with the United States 4×100 meter relay team. Glickman traveled to Berlin, but he and his teammate, Sam Stoller, were not allowed to run in the race because they were Jewish, an edict of Avery Brundage, the president of the American Olympic Committee and a known anti-Semite.

The Giants invited Glickman on the trip and he sat inside the stadium, pointing to where Adolf Hitler and his minions once sat, and recounted in great detail and controlled emotion about being denied an opportunity to compete. Jesse Owens, on his way to dispelling Hitler’s Aryan race supremacy theory, won one of his four gold medals for the U.S. in the 4×100 relay.

The game in Berlin had other educational moments as well. There was a boat trip on the Rhine River, bus tours of Berlin and, for those interested, a visit to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, about 25 miles from Berlin.

As for the football side of things, the Giants at the time were in the first year of the post-Phil Simms era and were in quarterback competition mode.

Dave Brown and Kent Graham were vying for the starting job (each having received a start in the first two preseason games), and head coach Dan Reeves was expected to announce his decision after the game with the Chargers. The first day in Berlin, though, Reeves — perhaps jet-lagged — told the Giants beat writers who made the trip that Brown “definitely, probably’’ would be the starter with a strong performance against the Chargers.

There was one problem with this announcement. Reeves had yet to inform the quarterbacks that Brown was in line for the starting job. Brown and Graham found out later that day from reporters, leading to some awkward exchanges. Reeves later admitted he erred in how this was handled.

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you that,” Reeves said to the beat writers on the trip. “That was a big mistake. They should hear it from me before they read it in the papers.”

The next day, after the Giants and Chargers engaged in a joint practice, Reeves officially named Brown the starter.

“We took everything into account, including the offseason program,’’ Reeves said. “Kent has played well, but Dave played a little better.

“I feel this gives us an opportunity to work for three weeks with our new No. 1 quarterback the way we would open the season.”

The Giants ended their week in Berlin by defeating the Chargers, 28-20, in front of a crowd of 57,329 on a cool, windy evening in Berlin. Brown ended up starting 15 games in 1994, somehow going 9-6 despite throwing 12 touchdown passes and 16 interceptions.

It turned out to be a strange and streaky season for the Giants. They won their first three games, lost their next seven and won their final six to finish 9-7 and out of the playoffs.

The Giants return to Germany this season in Week 10, when they will face the Panthers in Munich.