New York Giants coach Brian Daboll is not yet ready to decide who will be the starting quarterback when the team plays Tampa Bay on Nov. 24 after the bye week.
The Giants dropped to 2-8 with a last-second loss to Carolina in Germany on Sunday. In that game, quarterback Daniel Jones threw for 190 yards, had no touchdowns, two interceptions, and posted a low quarterback rating of 33.9.
With the loss, the Giants have now lost five straight games, tying with Jacksonville for the worst record in the NFL.
“We’re going to spend a lot of time here watching our tape and evaluating things. We’ll do that as a coaching staff over the next week here,” Daboll said on Monday when asked if Jones is still the starter.
Jones has completed 63.3% of his passes for 2,070 yards, eight touchdowns, and seven interceptions. He was benched for Drew Lock in the second half of a 28-3 loss to Philadelphia in Week 7, but Daboll has kept Jones as the starter in the following three losses.
When asked why he wouldn’t commit to Jones as the starter like he had in previous weeks, Daboll replied, “I would say we’re evaluating our team at the bye week is what we’re doing.”
Along with Lock, the Giants also have former undrafted free agent Tommy DeVito on the roster. DeVito, who played in nine games after Jones injured his knee last season, has not played this year.
“We’re going to get started on this process here of going back and looking at everything you normally look at in a bye week,” Daboll said. “Schemes, situational stuff, technique, all the things you do in a normal bye week. You evaluate the players. You have a good amount of games to watch. Situational review tape, calls, all those types of things.”
“We’ll do that like we normally do on a bye week and try to improve in the areas that we need to improve on,” he added.
Jones signed a four-year, $160 million contract during the 2023 offseason, with $92 million guaranteed. He is set to earn $30 million in base salary next season, with $12 million becoming fully guaranteed after the fifth day of the league year.
If the team is considering moving on from Jones after this season, his $23 million injury guarantee could lead to a change at quarterback, possibly to Lock or DeVito.
Daboll confirmed that he talks with general manager Joe Schoen and the team’s ownership group “on a daily basis” about all positions.
“I think that’s very important and healthy for the organization,” Daboll said. “If there’s changes we need to make, we’ll make them. Again, you only have about a week to do this and look at things. But you’re always doing that throughout the season after a game.
It’s just here, you’ve got some more information. You’ve got back-to-back-to-back of cutups of things you want to look at. Practices, meeting times, all those types of things. Then you make the necessary adjustments that you think you need to make.”
“How drastic? I couldn’t give you that answer. But I understand the question,” he added.
