The Debut of Danny Dimes:

Daniel Jones continues to make the “experts” eat their words. Admittedly, we were one who was not happy with the Giants selection of him. We still stand by the opinion that he could have been had at 17 with Josh Allen at 6. Imagine how much better you would feel about the draft if that was how it went down.

Some Giants friends of mine say its nice to finally have a QB with accuracy. I still don’t agree on that. I feel Manning was reasonably accurate. The most noticeable difference between Manning and Jones is their legs, not the arm.

From scrambling away from trouble to actually running for two touchdowns, these few plays a game where the ability to run matter are big differences.  When the line is mediocre, the value of the ability to run is even that much greater. Jones is an athlete. Manning even in his younger days was purely a quarterback but never a gifted athlete.

The Giants had good fortune to win that game. They probably didn’t deserve to if they had to rely on the miss of a short field goal attempt to accomplish it.  Even a loss would not have changed the fact that Giants fans need to be much happier today. For the first time in years, there is hope.

As this blog has written before, the way to winning a championship is to get materially more value out of the players than what they are being paid. Solid NFL starts on their second contract make at least mid -$20m (with Dak Prescott expected to get over $30m and I don’t consider him a top 15 QB). Paying $8m per year saves $16m+, probably a third of what a team needs to save to compete for a Championship.

Having a good QB on a rookie contract is how teams are usually successful. Look at recent success of Seahawks with Russell Wilson on his first contract or the Eagles with Carson Wentz, or the Rams with Goff. The Seahawks had to cut talent when they gave Wilson his big deal and the Rams and Eagles will have to do the same when contract two kicks in next year for their QBs.

The defense remains horrific. The pass rush got marginally better and Deandre Baker played a decent game, leaving hope that it was rookie jitters holding him back. The best development may have been the injury Alec Ogletree. He makes too much and must be gone by next year. The same goes for CB Jenkins who no longer has the latent to justify his huge contract. Eliminating those two, and Manning from the salary cap as well as being done with eating the unamortized portion of Vernon and OBJ, will mean the Giant’s will have some good young talent along with some significant cap space next year. For the first time in a while the future doesn’t look so dim. On the other hand, with Gettlemen as GM (which may now be solidified with Jones, the Giants will likely squander what they have going.

Losing Barkley hurts. He is far and away my favorite player, and the one who can go the distance at a moment’s notice. He should be back in 6-8 weeks. I like Wayne Gallman (who is in a different class but is a good back up).  The Giants now probably wish they had not cut Perkins.
 
- Ari Glass