Daniel Jones isn’t the problem; It’s where he was drafted

There has been a swirl of controversy over the Giants’ sixth overall pick of Daniel Jones in the 2019 NFL Draft.  Jones went surprisingly early and everyone from Phil Simms to Carl Banks has criticized the pick.  Giants’ General Manager Dave Gettleman has defended the pick to the death and feels the Giants have found their future quarterback.

The issue with the Jones pick isn’t that he doesn’t have the potential to be a franchise quarterback (although we’ll get to that).  It’s that the Giants could have had him at Pick 17 instead and gave up a ton of potential value to get their guy.  Let’s take a deeper dive into why this wasn’t the right pick at #6.

They could have had Josh Allen

Now, this is all speculation because at the end of the day projections are just projections, but Josh Allen (the DE from Kentucky) is slated to be a top notch pass rusher for years to come.  The Giants had the opportunity at #6 to take Allen, who later went to the Jacksonville Jaguars just one pick later.

We don’t know what Josh Allen or Daniel Jones will be but why not have your cake and eat it too when you have the chance to?  They could have had one of the top pass rushers in the draft (a huge need for them) AND their quarterback back to back.  Instead they took Jones too high (by all accounts) and took Dexter Lawrence at #17, who is a talented player but isn’t much of a pass rusher and who was suspended in college for potential steroid use.

He wasn’t even the top rated quarterback (in most circles)

That statement may be a bit misleading considering the Giants were literally the only team that felt he was the top quarterback available, but it was almost unanimous that Dwayne Haskins was the top prospect in the first round.  There is speculation that either the Miami Dolphins, Washington Redskins, or Denver Broncos were looking at Jones which is why the Giants took him so early.  Let’s debunk that.

The Dolphins wound up trading a second and a fifth round pick for Josh Rosen, who knew he was getting shipped out of town as soon as the Arizona Cardinals took him first overall.  The Washington Redskins took Dwayne Haskins with the 16th pick overall.  If anything, the Redskins would be the only team that may have actually wanted Jones, but considering Haskins fell into their lap at 16 it wouldn’t make much sense.  Lastly, there was a lot of chatter of Denver being the team that wanted Jones, but not only did they not take a quarterback at 10, but they traded back in the draft and took Drew Lock in the second round.  It’s a case of either them having their eyes set on Lock the entire time or not having Jones or Haskins highly rated.

Daniel Jones may be the next successful quarterback for the Giants but the value for the #6 pick with all the Giants could have had just wasn’t worth it.  Unless Jones and Lawrence become All-Pro caliber players, the Giants wasted the #6 pick of their own and the #17 pick received from the Odell Beckham Jr. trade.  The Giants traded back into the first round when they sent a second, fourth and fifth round pick to the Seattle Seahawks in exchange for their #30 overall.  They used that pick to select Deandre Baker, the top rated cornerback in most circles.

Once again, the argument over the Giants’ draft isn’t about whether or not Daniel Jones will be a good player.  The jury will be out on that for a few years.  The argument is the true value of those picks and how the Giants squandered the opportunity to draft higher rated players (Haskins, Allen, etc.) instead of reaching for Jones.

Dave Gettleman certainly has conviction and knows exactly what he wants, but was it a matter of being bamboozled by other GMs pretending to want Jones or does he believe that strongly in Jones?  Either way, it was a reach and the Giants may be paying dearly for it for years.