While everyone is expecting New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones to take a huge leap in his second season, his new head coach, Joe Judge, is tempering the expectations.
“I think the biggest thing he can work on right now is just being out there with the team,” Judge said of Jones, who the Giants selected sixth overall in 2019, on a conference call Wednesday. “Calling a play in the huddle, breaking the huddle, getting to the line, identifying the defensive front, making any checks at the line of scrimmage and then executing a cadence that everyone can work off of. Things that may seem so small are the fundamentals he has to start every successful play with. The biggest thing he can do is just to be in a groove with the team and hear his voice.”
Judge stated that with the COVID-19 restrictions, the new coaching staff and the new offensive system, that Jones has a lot on his plate at the moment and will need to be nurtured along so he can become the player the Giants are hoping he can.
“We are starting completely over right now, and we have to start from ground zero,” Judge said. “I’d say with the quarterback, there is never just one thing. All of our players are looking for total improvement as a player. With a quarterback, it’s all a mental game. It’s really the grasping and the understanding. If it was somebody’s second year in the offense, you would want to see their command of the offense on the field. For Daniel, we have to be fair. It’s a new offense, a new system we have schemed for him. He’s had a limited amount of walk-throughs of actually being on the field to do this. At this point, I am just looking to see his progress day by day and not looking to compare him to where he was last year.”
That won’t be easy to do in these abnormal times. The Giants, like every other team, are restricted in what they can do right now with the workouts limited to strength and conditioning drills at the moment.
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