Getty Image / Mitchell Leff
New York Giants fans couldn’t have asked for much more out of the team’s new regime in their first year.
The team made wholesale changes after another disappointing season in 2021.
They finally brought in a new GM in Joe Schoen. They poached Brian Daboll from the Buffalo Bills’ coaching staff to be their new head coach. They hired Mike Kafka as their offensive coordinator and brought in Wink Martindale to be his defensive counterpart.
The results were fantastic. The team went 9-7-1 in the regular season and made the playoffs. Once there, they won a playoff game for the first time since they won the Super Bowl at the end of the 2011 season.
Unfortunately, there is one decision the new regime made early on that could come back to haunt them this offseason.
They chose not to exercise Daniel Jones’ 5th-year option on his rookie deal.
Instead, they decided to take the year and see what he could accomplish with the new coaching staff.
He didn’t turn into an MVP candidate, but he proved that he can the starting quarterback of a winning NFL team.
Now that his contract is up, that development is going to be costly for the Giants.
If they had exercised his option, the Giants would have only had to pay Daniel Jones $22.384 million for next season.
That number is about to go way up during contract negotiations.
The franchise tag is essentially not an option for the Giants this offseason.
The exclusive tag is expected to cost around $45 million for a quarterback while the non-exclusive tag will be around $32 million, but leaves the possibility that another team could give up 2 1st round picks for Jones. In a year where a number of teams have uncertain QB situations, that might not be worth the risk.
Without those options, Jones is likely to be asking for a decent amount of money on a long-term deal.
The issue then become whether or not he’s worth the commitment. The Giants only have one year of data on Jones with this coaching, which is an issue that would have been fixed with that 5th year.
Now they’ll have to decide whether or not they want to pay Jones what will likely be more than $30 million per year while still being stuck with Kenny Golladay’s miserable contract and try to re-sign Saquon Barkley, who is reportedly looking for $16 million per year.
They also still have major needs at wide receiver and on the defensive side of the ball.
The team is currently projected to be under the salary cap by $45 million, but that number is without Jones, Saquon, Sterling Shepard, Richie James, and 2 starting offensive linemen.
Turning down the option may have seemed like the right decision for the New York Giants after watching Jones struggle for his first 3 years in the league, but now that situation has left them with a bit of a salary cap mess to deal with.