Pat Leonard: Rather than blame game, Giants should bench Daniel Jones or stand by him

NEW YORK — Brian Daboll needs to bench Daniel Jones or stand by him.

The Giants’ head coach can’t dime out Danny Dimes for making a critical mistake in Monday night’s 26-18 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers and then commit to him as Sunday’s starter against the Washington Commanders as if he still believes in him.

Jones hasn’t played well enough. He admits that. The Giants gained 5.6 yards per pass play in Pittsburgh. Jones turned the ball over on each of the Giants’ last two drives. The organization needs to upgrade at quarterback. Plenty would argue it’s overdue.

But GM Joe Schoen and Daboll deserve more blame than anyone for this 2-6 mess.

Their personnel mistakes, poor game management, lack of discipline, effort questions, bottom-of-the-league run defense and sideline outbursts are all indictments of their operation, as is their commitment to the wrong quarterback.

They are the ones who don’t have the confidence to play the backup quarterback they signed, Drew Lock, while multiple other teams are playing and winning with serviceable journeyman backups.

So they should stop using Jones as a human shield. He didn’t sign himself to a $160 million contract extension.

Scapegoating Jones and dragging him through the mud to prevent the shrapnel of blame for this mess from expanding to the front office and head coach’s seat is not necessary. They can move on from him without turning this into Operation Dime-Out Danny.

If they’re already done with him, then sit him down for good. Take him out of harm’s way so the team won’t owe Jones $23 million on a 2025 injury guarantee instead of just talking about it.

Otherwise, it’s not fair to Jones. He doesn’t deserve this. And it is alarming to several league sources that Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch are allowing the encouragement of a narrative that the organization’s problems belong primarily in Jones’ lap.

Mara alluded last week to Jones not being the only reason the Giants have faltered, but he declined to speak further on the QB.

“I’m not gonna get into critiquing individual players,” Mara said. “Obviously we’re struggling on offense right now, but there are a lot of reasons for that. And I don’t want to get into critiquing individual players. I’ve never done that, and I never want to do that.”

First there was Jones’ fourth-quarter benching against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 7 instead of changing an offensive line that couldn’t protect him.

Then the normally tight-lipped Daboll – who typically resists revealing any details – took the rare step in Monday night’s postgame press conference to publicly reveal Jones’ failure to shift tight end Theo Johnson to the right side before TJ Watt’s game-changing strip-sack.

“Just [a] pressure situation, clock,” Daboll said. “We had a shift with the tight end to get back over to Watt and didn’t get the shift. We talked about it in the locker room. You know, D.J. feels terrible to be honest with you. I know he’s going to own it. He came up here to say he owned it.”

Daboll admitted that the Steelers’ shifting of Watt from side to side – “lining up with him [on the] left [tackle] a little bit more than they have” – was the reason Johnson had started on the left alongside overmatched tackle Chris Hubbard.

“We were making sure if we put a chipper there that [Watt] didn’t line up opposite,” Daboll said. “So we were shifting to try to get the help where we needed to get the help.”

Jones, who is always accountable, confirmed at his own press conference after Daboll’s that he was at fault for not moving Johnson over.

“Yeah, I needed to shift,” Jones said. “Needed to shift Theo. Was looking at the coverage, didn’t shift him. Jermaine was expecting a shift, and he didn’t get that. So that’s my fault.”

Daboll later praised Jones for playing “extremely hard, competitive, fiery,” adding: “That’s what you want from your quarterback.” Then on Tuesday afternoon’s Zoom call, the Giants’ coach was complimentary of Jones’ actual play.

“I think that he did some good things throughout the game, made some good decisions, made some good checks,” Daboll said. “I thought he pushed the ball down the field and gave our guys some opportunities to make … I thought he did some good things and then ultimately, like you said at the end there, it’s all of us. We just didn’t get it done.”

By Tuesday morning, however, the agenda had already been set.

The Giants headline on NFL.com was about Jones admitting the strip-sack was “my fault,” and it wasn’t about Dexter Lawrence screaming at his teammates, Daboll belatedly benching Deonte Banks or Jones screaming “What the f— are we doing?!” after an embarrassing two-point conversion attempt.

Jones, for his part, has shown signs of pushing back against the Giants’ dismissal of him since training camp.

After his benching against the Eagles, Jones said “it wasn’t much of a conversation” when Daboll took him out. Later in the week, Jones then did something rare: he revealed something Daboll had told the team in private.

“I think after the game, he said to the team that I was the starter going forward,” Jones said. “So I’m going through the week preparing to play and play well. But in terms of his plans, it’s a better question for him.”

Jones then was angrier than he’s ever been after Monday’s circus act two-point conversion try.

The quarterback yelled first at no one in particular. Then he was yelling in the direction of Daboll. Then when Jones grabbed his tablet off the bench, Jones was so furious that he steered clear from an immediate conversation with coaches to identify what went wrong.

He was still venting. He was physically upset.

Tension is rising, not that it’s surprising. This situation was always headed in this direction.

The Giants aggressively scouted the top NFL Draft quarterbacks last spring and eyed both Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye, but they couldn’t trade up to get either. Then they passed on J.J. McCarthy, Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. at No. 6 overall.

Then on Aug. 31, Schoen was caught by HBO cameras telling Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles at the Georgia-Clemson opener that “it’s gotta be nice to not be looking at the, uh …” Schoen made an apparent throwing motion with his hands.

“Oh, quarterbacks? Yeah,” Poles said.

That’s where the Giants stand: They’re obviously close to done with this player. So they should just bench him and stop hiding behind him.

Unless they actually do believe in Jones. Then they should say that, instead of undercutting and scapegoating him.

It’s ugly. It’s no way to treat a player who has done nothing but represent the franchise well. And it says more about them than it does about him.

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