Who should start as Giants’ quarterback in 2024?

Drafting a QB is one piece of the puzzle, but not the only piece.

New York Giants GM Joe Schoen’s first task this offseason will be to shore up the quarterback position. Unfortunately, this will not be possible until the start of the season. Schoen would have thought he did just that, with Daniel Jones signing a four-year free agent contract two years later, Tyrod Taylor signing a two-year deal the year before and Tommy DeVito becoming a free agent. (Schoen may have planned to be Taylor’s backup in 2023, but gave up a few picks to trade for Tae Banks and Jalin Hyatt.)

That didn’t happen because of the Giants’ terrible starting schedule, an offensive line that was even worse than the underwhelming OL in 2022, Jones’ poor play before his injury in Miami, and the second ACL season that ended. He was wounded on the way back. That leaves the Giants in a bind, as they don’t know if Jones will improve on his 2022 game when he returns, and they don’t know if he’ll be available in time for April’s NFL draft. . Game 1 is ready to begin. This means the Giants will have to draft a QB this year. Six draft positions complicate matters. Chicago will either take a QB or try to trade to a team that will (eg Atlanta). That team may be the Giants, but recent history shows that the increasing cost of top-five picks would be counterproductive for the team (see: Carson Wentz, Mitchell Trubisky, Sam Darnold, Trae Lance, Bryce Young). , although the latter two still have time to change their stories). Washington and New England are ahead of the Giants, but the top three QBs (generally thought to be Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and Jaden Daniels) will likely be off the board when the Giants pick.
If that’s the case, the Giants will have to choose from their remaining QB prospects, all of whom would be top-six picks. The Giants could go in another direction with this pick, possibly a wide receiver, and hope to get a QB from one of the following prospects when their next pick is No. 39: Michael Penix Jr., Bo Nix or J.J. McCarthy. With all QBs likely gone by then, Schoen could consider moving up from No. 39 in the first round. That’s how Baltimore landed Lamar Jackson. Schoen could take a flier on someone like Michael Pratt, who Chris Pflum considers a late first-round pick, but most projections have him drafted in the third round. Regardless of who the Giants draft, the question is who will start Game 1.
The perks of having a rookie QB in place

Today’s fans want instant gratification. Get promising new talent, put them on the field and let them learn on the job. This is not always the case. Consider the following example of a starting QB decision:

Mahomes never played against the Giants at MetLife. However, he was shut out as a rookie in 2017 after sitting behind former Alex Smith all season. That terrible 3-13 Giants team beat Smith and the Chiefs 12-9 that day. The Chiefs went on to win the AFC West, but lost to Tennessee in the wild card round and were outscored 21-3 at halftime. Could Kansas City have won all year if Mahomes had started right away? He came out of college with a reputation for learning NFL defenses, getting used to playing center and easing his offensive game through the air. He impressed the coaches and teammates in his first training camp, but played until the last game of the season and won against Denver.
This offseason, Kansas City sent Smith to Washington in exchange for Kendall Fuller and a third-round pick. Mahomes scored 53 touchdowns as a starter in 2018 and led the team to a close AFC Championship victory over New England. The rest is history. Can Mahomes start right away? may be. His rookie season allowed him to adjust to NFL football, earn the respect of his teammates and familiarize himself with Smith’s late-season moves.

Green Bay seems to have a formula for quarterback success. Trade a QB at the end of the first round, keep him there for three years and then walk away. Aaron Rodgers was taken 24th overall by Green Bay for the first time in the 2005 draft after no other team selected a QB and San Francisco took Alex Smith 1st overall. Rodgers was sidelined for three years and starting quarterback Brett Favre shut him down before eventually going to the Jets. He became an elite NFL quarterback right out of the gate.
Fast forward 15 years and Green Bay drafted Jordan Love with the 26th pick in the 2020 draft, but made no attempt to inform Rodgers they were doing so. Love started just one game in his first three years, Kansas City’s Deer in the Headlights (29.2 PFF passer grade). Love finally became the starter this offseason after Rodgers left for the Jets (Love must now negotiate with the Jets to sign as a free agent for the first time in nearly 15 years). After an average first two months, he left in Week 9 and hasn’t had a below-average game since, outside of a loss to the Giants. Last weekend, he had his best game of the playoffs, tearing apart a great Dallas defense. Manning was selected first overall in the 2004 draft when the Chargers traded him to the Giants, but he didn’t start right away. The Giants signed Kurt Warner to a two-year, $9.5 million free agent contract with the understanding that Warner would mentor Manning but allow him to compete for a starting spot. Warner started the season last year for a Giants team that went 4-12. He went 5-4 but lost three of his last four games when manager Tom Coughlin decided to move to Ely. Despite this, Eli was a poor defender as a rookie. He posted a 48.2% completion percentage, 6 TDs, 9 INTs, a 55.4 NFL passer rating and a 1-6 record. He improved a bit, but was still subpar in the 2005 and 2006 seasons before finally making the playoffs in 2007 and becoming an elite QB. Would it have been better if Warner could have sat out the 2004 season and started the 2005 season while Eli was studying? (Warner signed a two-year contract and nearly won a Super Bowl with Arizona a few years later.) You wouldn’t know. Fast forward to 2018. Eli was dealt to Geno Smith at the end of the 2017 season, leaving Ben McAdoo to take over as head coach. He was replaced by head coach Pat Shurmur, who was closer to the QB. Manning slows down at this point and works behind a flowing offensive line he calls Checkdown Eli. However, the Giants would rather not select a QB in the 2018 draft because I think Shurmur could get another great season out of Eli. He doesn’t do that.
In 2019, the Giants drafted Daniel Jones, and Jones is set to be a freshman, but Shurmur is feeling the heat after two disappointing losses to start the season: the annual blowout at Dallas and a home loss at Buffalo. A losing team with rookie Josh Allen who wasn’t great last year. Just two games later, Shurmur replaced Manning with Jones as the starter. Jones shocked the world in Tampa Bay by winning his first game with a spectacular second half comeback. Shurmur keeps things simple for a starting QB, giving him mostly half-field reads and allowing him to use his feet on spins and zone reads. Jones wins the next game, but loses eight in a row as a good defense shuts him down more and more, he struggles with turnovers and his tendency to stick to first reads causes him to hold the ball too long.
As the quality of the offensive line declined over time (from 71.5 to 50.7 to 52.9 from 2019 to 2021) and a more conservative approach emerged under Joe Judge and Jason Garrett, Jones became a technically better QB (PFF 65.5-78.4 to 71.1). In 2021, his big shots increased from 7-20 to 24, making him less explosive. Should Jones have sat out 2019 instead of starting three games into the season? The next year, Shurmur was gone, and the Giants’ mistake was not hiring a quarterback-focused offensive line and head coach to replace him. After four years in the league, Jones was prone to turnovers but never developed the early awareness needed to attack defenses, study ahead and effectively manage players. . bag.
There are other examples. Philip Rivers hasn’t followed in the footsteps of Drew Brees in his first two years in San Diego (he didn’t start his rookie season). Dan Marino started nine games as a rookie. Lamar Jackson started in the 10th game. Jalen Hurts started his 13th game. Of course, there are QBs who started from day one like CJ. Stroud took the league by storm after a difficult opening game in Baltimore. Statistically, for a QB who doesn’t start more than twice, the development can start a little.