On Thursday, the New York Giants officially announced they would not exercise the fifth-year option on quarterback Daniel Jones’ contract.
While it might sound striking that a team wouldn’t commit to another year for their starting quarterback, the move has been expected for quite some time. With that decision, it means that Jones will essentially be playing for his next contract in the 2022 NFL season, something that probably isn’t much of a surprise to him given his erratic play so far with the franchise.
“I’m certainly the one responsible for how I play and I take that very seriously. I haven’t played well enough, we haven’t won enough games to this point.” Jones said in February.
His comments came on the heels of Giants CEO John Mara recently saying that the team still has faith in Jones and that the team “did everything to screw the kid up” under previous coaching regimes.
Jones had an unfortunate end to his 2021 season with a neck injury that ended his year early. After he went down, the Giants were a complete disaster, losing every game for the rest of the season. Head coach Joe Judge was fired and the franchise brought in general manager Joe Schoen and new head coach Brian Daboll.
We’ll have to see if the Giants send another message by drafting a quarterback during the 2022 NFL Draft. But either way, it’s going to be a make-or-break season for Jones and there were certainly some strong reactions to Thursday’s news around the football world.