Sticking with Manning to start season but hope for smooth transition to Jones
NEW YORK — Welcome to the Year of Two Quarterbacks.
That’s what this 2019 Giants season will be remembered for, no matter how the next six months play out.
As the players gather for the start of training camp on Wednesday — the rookies and a few veterans reported on Monday — they arrive to the usual array of position battles, question marks and even optimism that every team faces at this time of the year. For the Giants, there are doubts about the defense, high hopes for what Saquon Barkley can do in his second season and curiosity to see how new acquisitions fit into roles that were previously filled by popular stars purged in a tumultuous offseason. That normally would be enough narrative to sustain the annual second-half-ofsummer story lines.
But all of that will be relegated to the auxiliary field in terms of significance, be it real or projected. Because in the NFL these days, there is one position that stands above all the others in terms of a franchise’s search for success and stability, its temperament and its tone. One position.
Quarterback.
And now, for the first time in 15 years, the Giants have two.
It’s by design, mind you, not by default. The Giants willingly and eagerly put themselves in this position when they decided to stick with Eli Manning for at least one more season, then drafted Daniel Jones with the sixth overall pick in April’s draft.
Their hope is that it will lead to a smooth transition from one franchise quarterback to another, that Manning can show Jones how things are done around here (and maybe win a few games while he’s at it) before handing the job over to