Phil Simms is usually a Wednesday guest of Boomer & Gio, but on Friday, he had to call in and talk to BT & Sal once the news broke that the Giants were releasing Daniel Jones – and Phil’s heart breaks for both the team he loves, and the man who played his position there until today.
“I am a little surprised, but look, I understand it from both sides, I do. The injury, the money, that’s one thing, but the fact that he was the fourth-string quarterback? That really bothered me just to hear that,” Simms said. “But I understand that also, and I'm just going to say this right off the top for all the Giants fans out there: I understand you don't like him as the quarterback, it didn't work, but the guy really was dedicated and worked hard and did all that. That’s got to account for something.”
Simms hoped this wouldn’t become ‘let’s just dump on Daniel Jones Day’ – because both sides did the right thing here.
“He did the right thing for himself to go in and ask for his release, and John Mara, that really takes him off the hook for everything,” Simms said. “He's a great guy and he loves his players, so he wanted to do what he thought was right by Daniel Jones, too. It’s good for both sides.”
That said, Simms thinks Jones will get another chance somewhere, just as Sam Darnold did when he was exiled from New York, and perhaps Zach Wilson will, too, in Denver or elsewhere.
“He worked hard, he’s tough as hell, and everything you could want. He tried to make it work, it did not work, and we always put everything on the quarterback, which I understand – they get paid, put it on them,” Simms said. “But, the circumstances were not great, and this is not a football team that was going to go 10-7 or something, and when he had the chance to win a few games, it did not work. But I’ll say this: he has the size, the mobility, the arm, the toughness, everything you need to be a starting NFL quarterback, so maybe he'll get another chance somewhere down the line and he can resurrect his career.”
But is that a situation like Darnold, who went to Carolina to start but ended up as a backup in San Fran, and is now crushing it in Minnesota? Or is it more of the middle part of that journey?
“It’s really not going to be up to him as much as we think. In other words, he's gonna go somewhere as the backup quarterback, and that's what you hope for,” Simms said. “Like Mac Jones up in New England, they let him go and I thought, he's really perfectly built to be with the 49ers as the backup, but he went to Jacksonville – but there are really good spots that can open up sometimes for quarterbacks, and you just go, I'll be the backup, work hard, and they’ll retrain me and fix me up, and if you get a chance to play, you can make it happen.”
That all said, does Simms agree with BT that the Giants failed Jones more than he dialed them?
“I think you can say that, but I think Daniel could have done more for himself, so I won’t lay it all on the Giants on what they put around him and all the other stuff,” Simms said. “I think the opportunities were there; they were not the best in the NFL, so the circumstances weren't great, but I do think they had opportunities in many games. I felt like I was watching the same game over every week, where you’d see the emotion but they just could never win the games. I like Daniel Jones a lot, we have great respect for each other, it just didn’t happen.”
Listen to Simms’ entire visit above, as he also discusses Aaron Rodgers’ future, what the Giants look like with Tommy Cutlets at the helm, and more!