All eyes on him
Jones must lead Barkley-less Giants over banged-up 49ers
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Logan Ryan told his winless Giants their season is far from over and they can beat the injury-riddled San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, even with Saquon Barkley shelved for the year.
“I was 2-4 last year and was in the AFC Championship [with the Tennessee Titans],” the Giants’ safety said this week. “[Starting] 0-2 is horrible, but I think we’re a game out of the division here. It’s not like our division is world beaters at the moment. You have to keep playing the games. The 49ers are coming through some adversity, as well. I’m excited to go out there and get a win. Period.”
Ryan’s confidence will only go as far as Daniel Jones takes this team, though.
Jason Garrett’s offense has scored a league-low 29 points through two weeks, and Jones has two touchdowns compared to four turnovers. The reigning NFC champion 49ers will be starting their backup quarterback Nick Mullens at MetLife Stadium with Jimmy Garoppolo (high ankle sprain) out.
The Giants need the quarterback position to be this game’s greatest disparity. Their former No. 6 overall pick has to outplay San Fran’s former undrafted free agent, especially with tempered Sunday expectations for Devonta Freeman just days after his signing to replace Barkley
Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan, at least, has a high amount of respect for Jones.
“I think their quarterback can play at a very high level,” Shanahan said. “Looks like a definite top 10 pick and plays like it, and is only gonna get better throughout his career ... [I love] how he plays the game. He gets the ball to the right spot. He finds the weakness in the defense. When stuff isn’t there, he has the ability to create. He’s an extremely efficient quarterback.”
“He’s extremely tough, extremely competitive,” Shanahan continued. “He can make all the throws needed. And you can tell he plays the game the right way: he doesn’t guess, he reacts, he sees it, and you can see a lot of very good qualities in him. That’s how he looked at Duke and that’s how he’s looking right now.”
That’s high praise from one of the league’s best offensive play-callers. But Jones and Joe Judge’s Giants need a result on Sunday, not a pat on the back.
The Giants already have started 0-2 for the fourth straight season and the seventh time in the last eight years. If they lose Sunday, they will have opened 0-3 for just the third time since 1996.
Dan Reeves’ Giants started 0-3 in each of his final two seasons as head coach. They finished 5-11 in 1995 and 6-10 in 1996. But since, the Giants’ only two 0-3 starts came in 2013 under Tom Coughlin and in 2017 under Ben McAdoo.
Coughlin’s Giants started 0-6 and finished 7-9 in 2013. McAdoo’s 2017 team opened 0-5 and the coach was fired in the middle of a 3-13 season after benching Eli Manning.
Last season, Jones temporarily rescued the Giants from an 0-2 start under Manning with back-to-back wins in Weeks 3 and 4 over the Bucs and Washington to get back to .500. But then Pat Shurmur’s team lost 11 straight and he was fired after going 4-12.
The Giants are an NFL worst 12-38 since the start of the 2017
NFL season. They have missed the playoffs the last three seasons and in seven of the last eight years.
So as much as Shanahan’s complaints about the MetLife Stadium turf coming off last week’s win over the Jets were an annoyance, it was certainly a more palatable topic than revisiting the Giants’ perennial irrelevance.
Co-owner John Mara hired. Judge to change that, but the rebuild has only just begun. Dave Gettleman’s roster is still among the league’s worst in his third year as GM. There will be a lot more pain before the Giants can contend again.
The lowest win percentage by any division since 1970 was the 2008 NFC West at .344 (22-42). So far, this year’s NFC East is 2-6, led by Washington and Dallas both at 1-1 ahead of the winless Giants and Eagles.
So Ryan is correct at least that there is still a lot of football left to play. And he believes these Giants have the makeup to dig themselves out of an early hole.
“There are years where the team doesn’t start off so well and they pack it in, and some teams keep fighting and stick together,” Ryan said. “I don’t think we have guys that are packing it in.”