Four weeks from Monday, Daniel Jones will know whether 2022 is his last season under contract to the Giants or not, as May 2 is the deadline for the team’s decision on picking up the fifth-year option on his rookie contract.
But, to paraphrase the movie Varsity Blues, Jones is going to worry about the next 28 days for the next 28 days, saying as the team’s offseason program got underway Monday that his focus is on the field, not on his contract.
“There’ll be a time and place for those conversations," Jones said in a Zoom media meeting. "We’ll see and we’ll take care of that and do that when it comes up. I’m focused on what we’re doing here, preparing and taking advantage of every day we have here together.”
It would be easy for the Giants not to pick up Jones’ option, for any one of several reasons; whether it’s his ties to old regimes – head coach Brian Daboll is his third in four years – or his questionable durability, or even the fact that the cap-strapped Giants could clear more than $20 million by not doing so, there’s plenty of valid arguments for Big Blue to move on.
Jones can only worry about his own performance, though, and is working hard to get acclimated to another new system to be the guy in 2022.
“I think for me, like I said, my focus in on preparing myself,” he said. "There’s a lot of meeting people and getting on the same page, but I’m excited. I’m excited to learn it, excited to work with everyone here and looking forward to all of it.”
To his credit, though, as the Giants enter another new era, Jones took “full responsibility” for the Giants’ offensive woes over his tenure with the team.
“I take full responsibility for how I’ve played and we haven’t won enough games, we haven’t scored enough points, and we haven’t done things well enough,” he said. “So I take responsibility for that as a quarterback. You play a big role in those things.”
He has the full support of his new staff, though, it seems, and he’s full speed ahead on getting to work for 2022.
"I’m excited to get going here and I appreciate the support," he said, “but it’s my job to do my role to prepare this team, to prepare myself to play as well as I can and put the team in a position to win games. So I take that responsibility really seriously and that’s what I’m focused on.”
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