New York Giants: Daniel Jones having mixed results in camp

The narrative on Daniel Jones has been mostly negative, but the rookie QB has had strong moments in practice and is showing his potential.

The narrative on New York Giants rookie quarterback Daniel Jones has been overwhelmingly, annoyingly negative.

He might have been a reach with the sixth overall selection, and the Giants as a whole this offseason have been somewhat of a mess, but that doesn’t mean Jones can’t end up being a good player.

He is already flashing at Giants training camp despite everyone seemingly just wanting to make fun of him, the Giants, the pick, or their circumstances as a whole.

Look at this perfect ball here.

The issue is, the Giants will get a throw like this from Jones, and then they’ll get a crazy overthrow that looks like Jones is learning the position from scratch.

The pressure of being a top 10 pick is immense. The pressure of being a top 10 pick for a New York team? Well, that’s extremely intense.

Jones is feeling that, no matter what he says. He’s going from Duke where there’s basically no pressure to perform except from himself and his coaches, and nothing really from the outside.

No one expected anything from Jones. No one expected Duke to compete. No one expected him to become a top 10 NFL draft pick. He earned that through hard work and dedication, and he also benefitted from the NFL’s desperate need for talent at that position.

Jones throws a pretty spiral, he’s athletic, and he’s smart. He might not play with much of a killer instinct, and there were only a few times in his years starting at Duke where you thought wow, this guy could be a starting QB in the NFL, but even with all of that considered, the criticism of the player is unfair.

He did not choose to be picked by the Giants sixth overall. He did not choose the spotlight, it was forced upon him. Now, how he handles it is an entirely different story. Jones is going into a situation in New York where he’s in pretty much the exact opposite situation he was in at Duke.

He has to deal with the pressure of eventually replacing a two-time Super Bowl champion in Eli Manning who is also one of the best quarterbacks in Giants history. He’s going to have to deal with the pressure of being in the same division as two of the NFL’s best young QBs and another who has a bright (brighter?) future.

Whether Jones likes it or not, he’s got to change the way he approaches ‘one day at a time’ as an NFL player compared to the way he worked in college. He’s in a different jungle, and only the strong survive.