New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones joined Ronnie Barnes for a trip to Los Angeles to get a second opinion on his injured neck earlier this week. The result? No change.
Jones was not cleared for contact and remains a limited participant in practice. He will miss his second consecutive game on Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers and there’s no telling how things will progress after that.
“In terms of the updates right now, he still hasn’t been cleared for contact,” head coach Joe Judge told reporters on Wednesday. “He’ll continue to go through practice like he did last week. He’ll throw with the team. He’ll move. He’s in all of the meetings. We’ll see if anything changes in terms of his status, but he has not been cleared for contact.
“There’s not an immediate timeline. This could change quickly, it could change over time. Talking to the doctors and the medical team, there are some things that they’re just waiting on in terms of just making sure that he’s cleared for contact. When it comes to necks, backs, things of that nature, we’re not going to take any risks with our players.”
Judge said there’s no reason to believe Jones’ injury is season-ending, but cautions that the team wants to prevent any long-term issues.
“I think that’s about really the caution right now going into it, so we don’t create a long-term concern,” the coach added.
That’s a curious thing to say. But as it turns out, there’s a reason why Judge has chosen his words so carefully.
Paul Schwartz of the New York Post reports that Jones suffered “structural damage” to his neck all the way back in Week 11 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was apparently made worse during a Week 12 matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles.
The concern is that if Jones plays, he could do further damage to the neck, which suffered some structural damage in the loss in Tampa in Week 11.
If Jones did indeed suffer structural damage to his neck, it’s hard to envision a scenario in which he can both return to the field this season and not risk a long-term problem.
Unfortunately for New York, it’s likely that Jones has played his last game of the years and quite possibly, his last game as a member of the Giants.
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