The Giants liked Daniel Jones. Obviously, because otherwise they wouldn’t have drafted him at No. 6, ahead of Josh Allen or Ed Oliver or Dwayne Haskins. But: they really liked him.
Here’s GM Dave Gettleman, answering a question about the moment he fell for Jones. For a guy with whom the Giants are entrusting the franchise for, they hope, the next decade-plus, it was a decidedly meet-cute. Like, exactly-three-months-ago recent.
“I had seen Kyler and Will play each other. I had seen Dwayne play in the Big 12—is that the big 12 anymore? So I had seen those three guys play. And to me it’s really important that you see quarterbacks play [in person]. Seeing them in the environment is very important.
“I had decided to stay for the [Senior Bowl] game. And frankly, he walked out there and I saw a professional quarterback, after the three series that I watched. I saw a professional quarterback, so that’s when I was in full-bloom love.”
Love (lust?) at first sight! Sure, Gettleman had likely seen Jones on TV, including in his previous appearance, where broadcasters gushed over his Peyton Manning–like qualities, over a replay of him overthrowing an open receiver. But there’s nothing like three series in an exhibition game to let you know what you’ve got.
(This is, incredibly, the third consecutive year the Giants drafted the reigning Senior Bowl MVP, after David Webb and Kyle Lauletta.)
On one hand, it’s possible the Giants’ true infatuation with Jones is about, as they said, his “maturity” and “fiber” and, as his college coach promised, his lack of “swag,” and is a reflection of how this franchise overvalues personality-free automatons, especially when they come with the Manning seal of approval, but on the other hand I don’t know how to finish this sentence.
With Jones, it would have been one thing if the Giants had played it cool, but they appeared to confuse their personal scoutboner for a universal feeling around the league. Here’s SNY’s Ralph Vacchiano:
The general belief seemed to be that the Giants were eyeing Jones with their second first-round pick - No. 17.
But the Giants were absolutely convinced that if they wanted Jones, they couldn’t wait that long. If they did, they might be facing him twice a year instead.
That was at least part of why the Giants jumped early on the 21-year-old Duke quarterback - a fear that several teams, including the Washington Redskins, were interested in him as well, according to a team source. In fact, the source added that the Giants were even sweating out the first few picks of the draft, worried that Jones wouldn’t even make it to 6. They thought the Washington Redskins were trying to trade up with the Jets or Raiders for the third or fourth pick to take Jones for themselves.
The single funniest hypothetical scenario is the Giants trading up to grab Jones. Just imagine it. It’s fantastic. (The funniest actual thing that happened is that they considered “facing Daniel Jones twice a year” an absolutely unacceptable possibility.)
“You never know,” Gettleman said, about drafting Jones at six or possibly about how you should throw caution to the wind when you meet your soul mate. “I was not willing to risk it.” And yet ... you must risk it all, for love.