Going All In On Jones, Forces The Giants Hand On Squan

If you sign Daniel Jones to a big contract, you have to sign Barkley to a deal too

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We are six days away from thefranchise deadline to get a long term deal
done. Se Quon Barkley, doesit make you nervous that we are now
within a week's worth of having toget a long deal done? And are
you worried that he might not signhis franchise tag set out? How far

(00:22):
is he willing to go to makehis money? Well, he's definitely stated
that he's making sure he gets whathe's earned, and I think that that's
very fair of him. I mean, he's been a top, you know
running back in the league. Youknow, he posted his career best season
last year, probably putting a thirteenhundred and twelve yards, which was better
than his twenty eighteen season, whichwas the second best season. He also

(00:43):
had two seasons where he didn't playall season because of injuries, So that
also comes into the conversation of youknow, how long do you want to
extend a guy who's had some issueswith ankle injuries and things like that.
But I think that it definitely hasmade a lot of Giants fans very questionable
of what the main goal of thisseason going into it is. When s

(01:04):
Quan is such a major piece toyour offense and was such a critical weapon
last year, and especially pairing himwith Daniel Jones. I don't see what
type of team you're gonna build withouthim. You take a look at the
first half of that Giant season lastyear, which came to a surprise of

(01:25):
many. I'm sure you can agreewith that. Yeah, oh yeah,
no. I thought it was goingto be a much rougher season going into
it than it w it ended upbeing. And you saw the type of
impact that sa Quon Barkley had onjust overall winning, just winning straight out,
and then towards the end of theseason when they started getting more of

(01:47):
a feel for what this offense wasabout, stacking the box, limiting sae
Quon Barkley, making him work forit. Now you could say, you
know, maybe it's a conditioning issuecoming back from injury. Did he hit
that wall or was it just adefensive adjustment where it's like, all right,
we're going to force Daniel Jones todefeat us now with his legs,

(02:09):
but with his arm? Is heable to do that? Is he able
to do that against anyone not nameda Minnesota Vikings. That's my question for
you. I think he can andI think part of that has come over
the years a bit of because we've, you know, a Giants have obviously
had a lot of coaching changes,we had some offensive coordinator changes, and
I think some of that it camewith a cost of a mismanaging of what

(02:30):
sae Quon Barkley really thrives at.Saquon Barkley is someone who thrives at the
outside run game. He thrives withyou know, a screenplay. He needs
open field to break some ankles.He's not the kind of Ezekiel Ellie.
He's not going to try and chargeup the middle and get you those yards.
He can do it occasionally, butit's not a strong suit and if
anything, you're gonna end up potentiallygetting him injured. And that's what Jones

(02:53):
really can thrive with. You know, it's Jones is a running quarterback who
has a decent arm and he issomeone who you can do so many different
play action and you know, deceptiveoffensive things in order to make Sequon more
available to work with that receiving corethat you've worked to build and kind of

(03:15):
utilize it all together. Jones hasbeen someone who there's a time has been
questions about his decision making. There'sbeen questions about his ball handling ability.
You know, he had what wasit two years ago, led the league
in turnovers as a quarterback and thatwas, you know, the big highlight
of that year for what people wantedto attack him as they wanted to say
he was the quarterback that couldn't holdon to the football, and to his

(03:37):
credit, he has significantly reduced thosenumbers. I was someone who going into
it, I was very you know, scared. He had in twenty nineteen
twelve interceptions. He turned over theball a bunch. He had ten interceptions
in twenty twenty. Cut that downto five as of last year, and
he had one of his best years. I don't know how much of that,
you know, as someone who's nota Giants fan, you might have

(03:59):
a bit more of an outside perspectiveon it. How much of that you
attribute to the coaching versus the playerimproving? Because I think that Dabl's come
in and already shown that he's changedthe entire Giants organization as a whole.
Now you look for an on biasside of it, you being a Giants
fan, you want me, asan Eagles fan, to give my outside
perspective. What's difficult for me togive an outside perspective without a little bit

(04:21):
of bias is my love for BrianDable goes back to his Alabama days,
back with his Bill Belichick days,where I've always felt that Brian Dabele has
brought out the best in his quarterbacks, whether it was helping to a tongue
of below, whether it was helpingJalen Hurts progress even when he was not

(04:43):
starting. The work that he putin behind the scenes from Alabama has ultimately
led to the player that he istoday, work that he did with Josh
Allen. And then you take alook at what Josh Allen did last year,
and take a look at what DanielJones did last year compared to his
other years. You know, it'shard to picture that it's not in maybe

(05:04):
we can go sixty five Dable thirtyfive Daniel Jones for the reason of the
improvement now, A lot of peoplewant to point to the struggling of the
offensive line. A lot of peoplewant to point to the fact that,
you know, maybe Daniel Jones didn'thave the greatest weapons, which I'm gonna

(05:25):
tell you right now, Darius Layton, you know, according to New York
Giants three sixty six, take itor leave it, it salt on the
table. Some of these guys playwith nobody. I play with Sequan.
Where do you think the ball isgoing? First? Not me? We
had Shephard, we had Ingram,and now we got Darren Waller. I

(05:45):
am a number one guy. Weare not bums. We're out here balling
paraphrasing. Yeah, so a littlebit of a crazy take, hot take,
if you want to call it.So, if that's how he views
himself, if that's how we haveused the weapons around him. Now.
Granted, when they had Evan Ingramin a healthier Stirling Shepherd, they didn't

(06:08):
have Brian Dabel. They did not, they did not, and he showed
I got a context it that way. I just and this has always been
my take with Daniel Jones. Ihave always been on a Daniel Jones spandwagon.
I never thought he was going tobe a guy you can win the
Super Bowl with. But I thoughtit was a guy you can win games

(06:28):
with. He's limited, but youcan win games with him if you have
the right pieces around him. Icall him a more athletic Alex Smith.
That's how I'm going to paraphrase it, So the forty five million dollars a
year contract is no go for me, only for the simple fact that I
wanted to see them add to weaponsaround him. I wanted him to know

(06:54):
his value to the team outside ofnot having Sequon Barkley. What is he
going to do with the around himwhen he doesn't have Sequan? What was
he going to do with the piecesaround him? Now that Evan Neil is
in year two of right tackle,Andrew Thomas has proved to be one of
the better left tackles. They improvedthe interior of the offensive line, which

(07:15):
was their biggest weakness this year.And it's crazy to say it like this
is a make or break year forme. On my opinion of Daniel Jones,
I need to see him not dowhat and duplicate what he did last
year, but add on to it. I don't want to see what he
did last year. I want tosee him add on to it. So

(07:35):
take every single team as the MinnesotaVikings defense. Doesn't mean you gotta throw
for three hundred yards, no,but I want to consistently see between one
eighty in two fifty with an extrafifty on the ground. I want to
see you manage the game, takeover the game when needed, and I
have yet to see that, honestly. Yeah, and that's kind of been

(07:57):
the big thing about, you know, this whole DAYE Jones Trek signing and
when he's been playing the last coupleof years, is we consistently got to
a point, whether it was analysts, whether it was Giants, fans,
whether it was coaches, everyone justkept saying, we need Daniel Jones,
we need to see Daniel Jones domore. And last year we saw him
do more, and no one canfault that. He definitely did an extreme

(08:20):
improvement. Obviously we've stated that,and I agree with you. I think
it's sixty five day l thirty fiveJones. But Jones improved nonetheless. And
I think that signing him to thatbig of a contract and with for that
much pay, I think is it'sa bold choice because you know, again
we're again saying we need to seemore, and we're still saying it even

(08:43):
now. We've got those weapons aroundhim that he potentially says, he says
we have. We don't have bums. We have the great offense that we
do have. You know, obviouslyyou have that question mark if Barkley's gonna
play or not. Hopefully they cometo an agreement pretty soon. You know,
I think Barkeley should be around thetwelve point three million for four years
range. I think he's around thatthat Nick Chubb, you know, area

(09:05):
of play and similar contract as warranted, but you can't guarantee that. And
I think that when you point yourring of earlier, we may see Daniel
Jones without sae Quon Barkley, andwe may have to see that offense adapt
without him, and that, youknow, again, on a make or
break year for Danny Dimes, yougot to kind of put something together for
him. So last year and Iagreed, Daniel Jones definitely showed more.

(09:31):
He did more, but I alsoparaphrase that with he was asked to do
less, and what I mean byasked to do less, they stayed within
his talents and what he can doon a team, meaning that sneaky athleticism,
you know, throwing the ball whenneed be. But let's rely on

(09:52):
your legs and work that in withsae Quon Barkley, which I think was
something that should have been done longbefore Dable was even a hunch of ba
on this team. I always said, if you go back to his duke
dates, he was a sneaky athlete. Now he's not going to burn you,
no, but he can make youpay with his legs. You know,
maybe earlier Aaron Rodgers Andrew Luck typeof running. I'm not saying he's

(10:18):
RG three or anything like that,or I'm Michael Vick, but he can
beat you with his legs when needbe. And I think that was a
big part of his growth. Now, if you take away his legs and
force him to be a pocket passer, we did not see that much improvement
last year. What's gonna make methink full off season? These teams now

(10:43):
know the way that Dable is goingto call an offense, which is completely
different. You look at the Bills. The Bills have never run more four
receiver sets under any other coach otherthan Brian Dable being there yore receiver sets
with Brian Dable. You're not seeingthat with the Giant. You're seeing more
of a heavy run offense. Andif the run game's not working, they're

(11:05):
not working. Now you got offseason. Now you got full season of
game tapes. Daniel Jones, whenthe pressure is on, is he going
to be able to make the bigplays inside of the pocket. That's going
to be the number one question forthis year. You know, you know
you brought up earlier the fact ifthey've redone the offensive line for him,
they've tried to make it a bithardier, because that's kind of been the

(11:26):
big weakness, and Jones has shownunder hot pressure where the old line can't
hold for long periods of time.He's not great at making those instinct decisions
to try and throw away the ballor try and you know, pass it
to a guy last minute, tryand screen it to Barkley quickly. He'll
take the ball and he'll try andmaybe try and go a yard with it,
maybe two yards. But in theend, that's not what you need.
You have to have someone who's gonnamake those split second decisions, make

(11:50):
those good under pressure choices that Joneshasn't always been able to do. And
I think one of the differences betweentwo years ago and last year was instead
of trying to make those decisions onthe run, he tucked it and left
yes, So there wasn't the I'mtrying to extend to play ball gets batted
out of my hands. It's afumble or I throw a horrible interception because

(12:13):
I'm trying to get rid of theball. It was all right, the
pocket's breaking down, my first read'sgone, my safety net of se Quon
Barclay's covered. I'm gonna just tuckit and run. And I think that
helped improved a lot. When that'snot there, when there is lane to
run, and when there's leans notto run, can he make those plays?

(12:35):
And that's the biggest question, andI have not seen it other than
against the Minnesota Vikings. So youtake a look at those two games against
the Minnesota Vikings and against everybody else, including the Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs.
The Eagles dominated, dominated, Andyes, I know I'm an Eagles

(12:56):
fan, but I'm about to say, look what Patrick Mahomes did. Now
I'm not saying Daniel Jones patrick Mahomes, but Patrick Mahomes can carve you up
as great as he did against thisEagles defense. Daniel Jones should have been
able to give me half of that, exactly half of that. That's the

(13:16):
big concern is against those very strongdefenses, he has to be able to
show to make those pass plays whenhe needs to because the run game won't
always be available and you have tohave an alternative to it. Oh man,
I'm very excited to see what thisyear is brings. I don't remember
a quarterback in my lifetime and Imight be short memoried that got paid,

(13:39):
but also you wanted to see morefrom I'm not saying it's a contract year
type of situation with him, butI am saying you put the However,
you say it's stable before the horse, the carriage before the horse. Now
can the horse get back in frontof the carriage? Yeah, it's And

(14:01):
some people say that it looks almostlike the Giants. The Giants organization got
desperate, They got scared because youeither had to take him or you had
to let him go. And thenwho would have been your guy for this
year? You know, obviously thisyear is not a great draft year for
a quarterback. However, next yearit looks like it was a potential good
year for a good quarterback draft class. But are you willing to when you

(14:22):
know you're trying to keep say Quonand see what that's gonna look like,
are you really willing to waste ayear? And so they think that the
Giants just full set on Jones andsee what happens. And you know,
I again, I'm someone who,at the amount he's getting paid with what
he still needs to prove, Idon't fully support it. I was not

(14:43):
someone who was jumping up the joywhen I saw that signing. But you
know I'm not someone who's gonna foldon it either. Like you've made the
decision, You've made your bed,build the team around him, lay in
that and see what you can dowith it. And if Dabel is able
to construct the team around what hedid last year and build plays around what
they have already shown they can do, I'm excited, but still nervous.

(15:07):
I think the question that I wantyou to answer for me is are you
okay with slightly above mediocracy? Soare you okay with and I'm gonna go
on a low side here seven toten wins a year potentially being in the

(15:30):
NFC title race and being a consistentwild card contender, or knowing that Daniel
Jones is a very good game manager, slightly above game manager? Or are
you willing to roll the dice andtry to find your own Patrick Momes.

(15:50):
Now, I'm not saying everybody canbe Patrick Momes, but in hindsight's fifty
fifty. Are you rolling with AlexSmith or you're trying to find your Patrick
Moomes. I'm someone where I'm moreof a roll the dice person. I
personally was someone who was getting youknow, where we were three years in
a row now of hearing we needto see more, we need to see

(16:11):
more, we need to see more. We got a good year for him
last year. I just don't knowif you can perform at a higher level.
And you know, of course we'resaying right now we need to see
more coming to this season. Idon't know if you're gonna just guarantee mediocrity
and you know, slightly above itgoing into a wildcard team when you have

(16:32):
a team that could go beyond thatif you just had the right guy.
Obviously, you can't guarantee that.You can't guarantee that from draft prospects.
You have to hope and you canyou can maybe find someone who is,
you know, extremely talented. Butit's one of those things where you've you've
you've sold out, you've said thatthis is our guy. They've the Giants

(16:52):
have been pushing to make him thefranchise player for for a while now.
Trying to kind of coined him asthe next Eli Manning, and they've they've
made that apparent, they've sold onit. They've said that he's our guy.
Not the decision I would have gonewith. But now that we have
it, all you can do isbuild the best team around him to enable
Jones to succeed. But he stilldoes need to take that extra step.

(17:12):
And this isn't a hammer Daniel Jonesshow. This is not what it's about,
because I do think you can wingames with him, yep. Maybe
an NFC title here or there,yep, but ultimately going all in on
Daniel Jones, like you said,you push the chips to the center of
the table. Yep. You gota couple of chips left though, so
you didn't go all in yet becauseyou have sa Quon Barkley and you're looking

(17:36):
at your hand. Do you pushall though those chips in going all in
on Daniel Jones? Do you haveto go all in on Daniel Jones with
sa Quon Barkley? Does that makethat? Does sa Quon Barkley look at
it like I've seen him without me, I know what I'm worth to this
team. You have to go allin on me. Now that you went

(17:57):
all in Niel Jones, do youyes, I think you have to.
I think you're at the point whereyour hand's been forced. You've been dealt
what you've been dealt. Now youhave to play the hand. If you're
gonna let Barkley walk, you're enablinga significant portion of your game. We've
stated that this Giant's team is arun first team, and if you take
out one of the top running backsin the NFL, you're not going to

(18:18):
replace that. I don't care whoyou're throwing that backfield, it's not going
to be the same. He needsthat option. He needs it because he's
a critical moment player. That iswhat Saquon Barkley is. He's a guy
where he's going to burst out andhave an eighty yard run in one game
and have it a spectacular moment,and you know what, maybe he'll have
like five yard ten run plays afterthat, But it's that in those one

(18:40):
moment things are what you need outof your running back. In those situations.
With Daniel Jones, who's gonna haveso much pressure on him, people
are gonna be watching for the run. They're gonna be all over the receivers.
You have to have that extra weaponavailable. Absolutely. I think if
you go all in on Daniel Jones, you have to go all in on
sa Quon Barkley. If you're gonnahave your quarterback, he gotta have the

(19:00):
pieces around him. Take a lookat Eagles fan Carson Wentz. Yeah,
what they put around Carson Wentz.If they could have done what they did
for Carson Wentz that they've done forJalen Hurts or any other young quarterback.
If you do what you did forJalen Hurts for any young quarterback, that
is a recipe for potentially being alot more successful. Take a look at

(19:25):
Kyler Murray with the Arizona Cardinals.They went out, they said, are
aj Green, You're aging, butI still think you're a quality talent.
We're gonna bring you in. DeAndreHopkins, we need to bring him in.
You had Christian Kirk there. Lookat every single young quarterback and they
add the big pieces around him.Daniel Jones hasn't had that yet. No,

(19:47):
Now you have to make sure,all right, we drafted Jalen Hyatt,
what's he gonna be? You know, we gotta bring sae Quon Barkley
back. Now we have Darren Waller, who is a bona fide star,
maybe not a tight end, butyou know, notified star. He can
catch the ball. Now, Ineed to see my young guy succeed because
I got him the offensive line.I got him a brand new rookie center.

(20:11):
I got two book end tackles forthe next ten fifteen years. If
everything pans outright, and I gotmy all star Pro Bowl running back with
my Pro Bowl tight end receiver,with a bunch of very good receivers around
him, it's up to you.Yep. You gotta put the ball in
his hands and you have to justlet it happen. That's kind of the

(20:34):
scary part going into this season.Whatever happens is just going to happen,
and that will be the Daniel Jonesof the future. Whether it succeeds or
fails is going to be entirely upto Jones and Davil working out this offense.
But I think you cannot do thatwithout Seguen Barkley or else. You're
just putting one foot in the graveand basically starting one step behind. And

(20:56):
you don't want to do that.In football, it's usually a three year
turnaround or on year one, we'regoing in the year two. What are
you going to show me with thisturnaround? We saw a little bit of
it in the first half of lastseason. Second half? What team are
they more like? Are they morelike the first half? Are they more
like the second half? And thisis going to be the year that is

(21:18):
very critical because you paid your quarterbackand it looks like you're trying to pay
your running back. Where do yougo from there? Because the improvements from
here are going to be minimal.A wide receiver there, a defensive back
there, a linebacker there. Youknow, ultimately you have your cornerstone pieces
in place. Am I getting thefirst half of last year or am I
getting the second half of last yearor somewhere in between. We need to

(21:41):
figure that out and this is goingto be the year that we do it.
Oh yeah, absolutely. And youknow that's the other thing. We're
looking at a team that's so it'sinvested so deeply in its offense. You
know, you're looking at Jones,You're looking at Barkley, You're looking at
them getting the center and you know, obviously the Giants secondary has always been
a big question mark. Their linebackercorps has been very strong, So it's

(22:02):
kind of seeing how you're going tomake an offense first team based around a
question. Quarterback is kind of goingto be the big question of this season. Absolutely