While New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones has some things to work on ahead of his second season, he is already excelling at targeting wide receivers in the red zone.
In fact, according to Pro Football Focus, Jones’ grade of 79.3 was the third-best in the NFL in that department, trailing only Drew Brees (89.3) and Derek Carr (84.0).
Best passing grade when targeting WRs in the red zone in 2019:
Drew Brees – 89.3
Derek Carr – 84.0
Daniel Jones – 79.3
Matthew Stafford – 78.6 pic.twitter.com/lTuJvxemos— PFF Fantasy Football (@PFF_Fantasy) July 3, 2020
In order for Jones to be able to build off his red zone success from 2019 in 2020, and for the Giants to actually capitalize off it more, they have got to do a better job with taking care of the football — and that starts with Jones.
Big Blue saw an unacceptable amount of drives halted prematurely due to turnovers. The Giants’ suffered a total of 33 giveaways, the third-most, and 16 fumbles lost, which was tops in the NFL.
Jones fumbled a league-leading 18 times, and only three of those were recovered by New York.
When the Giants were able to avoid those hiccups, they actually did a decent job in the red zone. Jones and Co. scored touchdowns on 57.14 percent of their red zone trips, ranking No. 17 in the NFL.
If Jones can figure out his fumbling woes and limit his mistakes overall, the Giants might be able to put together a better scoring offense than many expect in 2020 thanks to Jones’ elite ability to sling it in the red zone.