Seems it is gonna be D Jones
 

Just saw a report we are finalizing a deal with Daniel Jones.

Colts reach agreement on one year deal with Jones. $14M base, could push to $17.7M with incentives.


https://x.com/AdamSchefter/status/1899474145944998166

https://x.com/TomPelissero/status/1899475294748037454

As bad as I think he is, his mechanics are still better than Richardson. AR is definitely more athletic, but his mechanics are horrible. I don't blame either of these young men. This is an indictment on Ballard.

And we were off to what seemed like such a good start in FA. That's just WAY too much to spend on a bad QB that you hope never sees the field. I don't understand why we just wouldn't bring Minshew back for 1/4-1/3 of what we gave Jones and then put the other ~$10M to fixing other parts of the roster.

The only good thing you can say about Jones is that he’s better than Minshew.

What were some of y'all expecting? Minshew kind of lacks mobility and a deep ball, We've been there. Flacco had almost no mobility but could sling it, We've been there too.

Jones I think is useful given the circumstance here, in my opinion. Richardson is without a doubt one of the most incredible runners at the QB position I've ever seen but he's not a tank that can take the hits and he hasn't proven he can effectively throw the ball.

Jones can run. Like actually run, and we don't need a discount Jalen Hurts over here. Worst case scenario, he's trash and we dump him in pursuit of Arch Manning in the next year or two because we'll get rid of Richardson too.

$14,000,000 for 1 year of Daniel Jones. Woof, but I guess that's the going rate these days.

Personally, I think that there’s a lot to like about the signing.

His biggest problem in New York was that he had two General Managers who seem/seemed totally indifferent to the need to build a solid Offensive Line. All too often, his pocket simply collapsed, and two or three pass rushers would converge on him before he had a chance to set up.

Secondly, he had a corps of receivers that could only generously be described as nondescript, a group that was chronically prone to injury and resulted in a situation in which Jones was sometimes throwing to receivers on Sunday who had been brought in off the street on Tuesday.

Third, as Giants owner John Mara mused, the Giants never did a good job of supporting Jones. He saw 3 coaching changes, going from Shurmer, who was fired after Jones rookie season, to Joe Judge who lasted two years, to Brian Daboll, who would have been fired save for the fact that Mara is worried about instability.

What Jones brings to the table is a strong arm, good accuracy, and mobility. If anything happens to Richardson, Jones can step in and you don’t have to shuffle the playbook and change the scheme.

If there’s a danger, it lies in questions about what’s going on between the young man’s ears.

Has he been irretrievably traumatized by his experience with the Giants? Does he hear footsteps where none exist?

Have 5 years of incessant carping from his coaches about interceptions and ball security made him too gun shy and risk averse? Have they weaned him of the gunslinger mentality that was a strength early in his career?

Is he the perfect plan B? I don’t know. What I do know is that you couldn’t put all your eggs in Anthony Richardson’s basket. Even if he irons out his mechanics and becomes the next Josh Allen, legitimate questions linger about his durability. Jones is a Quarterback who is capable of Carrying his team into the playoffs. He did it with the Giants, and if you give him enough support, he can do it in Indy.

I would think both Jones and Richardson are on 1 year contracts. Best case scenario, Jones pushes Richardson to become the QB we all hoped he could be. Worst case, we dump them both and draft our future QB.

He's probably just good enough to beat out AR's floor (which is about what we've experienced so far). I wouldn't bank on him flourishing in a new environment.

Should be a decent backup with enough athleticism that the entire playbook doesn't have to change if/when he steps in. Beyond that, just motivation for AR.

Nothing else has the opportunity to matter until QB is solved.

Best option available I guess

He’ll probably beat out Richardson

No probably about it.

Finally a voice of reason, who doesn't just look at stats and determine that Jones is just garbage.

I don't doubt he will be the better QB in camp and pre-season, but barring a significant injury, I don't see him getting the job.

Can't have him as the actual QB if he beats AR- if so, we stay in QB purgatory as he is not the long term answer. So I see it as a true means to push in hopes it forces AR to be better, and if he doesn't, then we just go full re-set next year at QB, HC, GM.

Really? Do you think that Steichen and Ballard, who's jobs are on the line, are just bringing Jones in to push Richardson?

I see no way that Irsay signs up for that strategy.

Actually he's not. Jones is better runner, but Minshew is a better passer. Here's their career averages prorated to 17 games:

Jones: 64%, 3,541 yds, 17 TDs, 11 Ints, 6.5 Y/A, 529 ruyds, 4 TDs, 12 fmbls
Minshew: 63%, 3,443 yds, 20 TDs, 10 Ints, 6.9 Y/A, 196 ruyds, 1 TD, 10 fmbls

Also, I didn't say I would take Minshew over Jones straight up. That's at least debatable. I said that I would take Minshew +~$10M in cap space over Jones, which IMO isn't.

If Jones beats out AR then it won't take long for Jones to be benched for AR. Afterall Jones was benched for Tommy DeVito and Drew Lock.

It's not just Jones' shitty stats. It's that combined w/ guys like DeVito and Lock having outperformed him w/ the same talent around them.

Even if you support this move this still has to be a big concern. I didn't watch NYG play much this past season, but when I saw them play Jones was completely terrified of throwing the ball downfield. It was either a SNF or MNF game that really sticks out where the broadcast kept showing how his receivers were consistently open downfield and he had plenty of time to throw, but he would just dump the ball off in the flat on essentially every pass play.

If Jones beats AR out for the starting position, barring a deep playoff run with DJ as the QB, Steichen and Ballard are going to get fired.

I just can't believe that three people with as much knowledge about football as Irsay, Steichen, and Ballard, would convince themselves there is a future for this football team with Jones as QB1 for anything more than spot duty in coverage for an injury. At best, we stay the 8-9, 7-10 football team we are for 2-3 years more with him as the QB, which means Q, Kenny, JT, Buck and Grover, are all washed. There is no way Ballard or Steichen can survive that.

Jones has similar passing stats and is a much better runner so yeah, he’s better than Minshew. Also has a much better arm.

I don’t really care about the cap space. It’s not like we’d use it to sign some all world player.

The only thing that upsets me about this signing is that Ballard said he was committing to bringing in QB competition for AR. To me, the only QB on the market that could've done that while also fitting Steichen's system was Justin Fields.

If Ballard had just been honest and said they were pursuing a high end backup for AR that would fit the system, Jones would make sense at that point. This signing makes his commentary about legitimate QB competition feel like lip service to an angry fanbase.

Minshew's better TD/Int ratio and Y/A is enough to make up for the difference in running IMO. And that extra cap space isn't as irrelevant as you think it is, since ~$10M can definitely be the difference between an ok FA signing and a great FA signing or can be used to shore things up. For example we could have used that cap space to have re-signed Kelly.

I don't know. Some folks on here have drank enough Jones Kool Aid to believe he's a shoe in to be our day 1 starter and possibly our franchise QB for the next decade. Obviously I hope they're right (if AR doesn't take a big step fwd), but I'm certainly very skeptical of Jones.

We have a QB controversy already. Lol

Jones is objectively the better option, at least in terms of talent, upside, and athletic ability.

And if the Colts had wanted to resign Kelly, they would have done so. They have more than enough cap space.

They obviously decided to give Bortolini the job.

Jones had one good year and got way overpaid for it. Could he be decent here? Sure. He's not going to be anyone's franchise QB, and he'll be gone next year anyway if AR doesn't live up to billing, because the whole regime will be gone.

Are you insane? You're giving talent, upside, and athletic ability to Daniel Jones over Anthony Richardson? Those three things are just about the only things AR has going for him. Jones has more practical skill as a QB right now, but he is nowhere near the athlete and has nowhere near the potential of AR.

I think he was referring to Jones and Minshew

I was referring to Jones compared to Minshew. I thought that was clear from the discourse but I guess it wasn’t.

Too bad all of that extra RAS goodness hasn't led to any better actual results than what Minshew has produced in his career.

Kelly was just an example. We have a plethora of needs and not a ton of cap space left, which as discussed in the other thread is ~$12M+whatever we saved from Smith's restructure. $4M will have to go to the draft class and another ~$8M for the practice squad and roster churn (per an old Sherck post). So we're looking at maybe ~$10M left for FAs.

I wouldn't even say it was a good year. More like an ok year w/ 1 really good playoff game in the wild card round (he sucked in the division round). And yes I agree that he isn't franchise QB material, but some people on here are acting like he is which is why I made the comment.

I do think that if AR doesn't pan out this year but Jones ends up having a Darnoldesque turnaround year that he would save Ballard's and Steichen's jobs. Which I'm sure is one reason why Ballard signed him. I don't think Jones has it in him, but if he proves me wrong then I'll certainly happy to admit it.

Now that makes more sense

I think Ballard wanted a guy to push AR, to compete with him. I don’t think they wanted a guy who was obviously better than AR, but a guy with talent who could at least conceivably take the job.

They still see AR as the future, they just want him to have to compete.

Thats just my opinion, based on what they’ve said and their actions.

It is hard to know who he had in mind, as it takes two to make a deal come to fruition.

That's fair, and also to be fair in theory we won't have to change the offense much if AR does get hurt. So in that regard the signing does make sense.

The Vikings wanted Jones back. The Vikings elevated Jones to the active roster for the playoffs. I don't know what that means, but it must mean something?

He wasn’t benched by the Giants because they thought that Lock or DeVito gave them a better chance to win. They pulled the plug on him because his 2025 salary of $25 Million was fully guaranteed for injury.

Beyond that, even though no one in the Giants organization would admit it, the move to bench Jones had more than a whiff of tanking.

There was a brief stretch there when he actually played pretty well, I remember thinking that this guy is a lot better than I thought. I've also seen him play like crap, but the Giants are known to do that to players!

I hope AR is working his ass off!

AR needs to be the model pro this off season and turn up ready to go and lead this team. I fear though that he is just not a natural born leader, he is still very young.

In terms of leadership, it will be interesting to see just what Bortolini and Goncalves bring, as Kelly was a leader, and I am concerned that the unseen skills that he has might be missed more than just his on field production.

Nelson leads by example, but I don't get the impression that he is a natural communicator or someone who rallies the troops, same with Braden Smith.

So, a starting O-line of:

Raiman - Nelson - Bortolini - Goncalves - Smith

Primary backups of:

French
Pinter
Freeland

Other backups of:
Sills
Mafi
Tucker

Honestly, add at least one 2025 draft pick in the top 4 rounds to that group that has experience at both OG and OT and I am not displeased with that group at all.

Yeah, it is a lot to ask of two 2nd year players to start side-by-side but they have good help outside of them (Nelson and Smith) and I think a good O-Line coaching staff.

Ah. I didn't know about the injury clause in his contract. Makes sense that they would want to make sure he didn't get injured since they had decided to run him out of town.

I'm not so sure about the tanking though. For starters they were doing a damn good job of tanking w/ Jones in there, and also DeVito played much better than Jones in 2023.

I think we definitely need at least some OG depth, which could come from the draft as long as he is able to step in and play and isn't a project.

So, the general sentiment is that a player can't turn his career around in a new environment, with less pressure, better coaching, better supporting cast and a team that believes in him?

Tell that to Sam Darnold, Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield.

o


And Jim Plunkett.

I suspect that because the Colts have had only one good season since the retirement of Andrew Luck, many of their fans are skeptical in regard to the signings of players (particularly quarterbacks) that aren't regarded as a slam-dunk for success.

o