The NFL abbreviation is often joked about to mean ‘Not For Long’, as teams and players are quickly put through the gauntlet of the professional league where very little patience is granted to those met with high expectations.
So for head coach Brian Daboll, who is entering his third season with the New York Giants after a playoff appearance in 2022 and a brutal battle with team injuries in 2023, the clock is now ticking to get this team turned around in 2024—or he could be relieved of his duties.
Under center for the Giants will likely be Daniel Jones, entering his sixth season in the league. The first round pick in 2018 had struggled in his time prior to Daboll arriving in town.
But the two meshed well together in 2022, earning Jones a four-year, $160 million deal and confidence from the front office that he would be the team’s franchise quarterback.
He followed that up with six games of underwhelming play while missing time due to a neck injury early in the year, and a torn ACL in November.
After the decision to run it back with Jones as the intended starter and an improved weapons room, Daboll has put all his chips in the middle so that the soon-to-be 27-year-old can be a franchise quarterback in this league.
Even after the Giants made the 2022 NFL Playoffs, many had reservations about paying Daniel Jones top dollar because they felt that the season’s success reflected more on the coaching staff than the quarterback himself.
Despite the plethora of needs surrounding the roster, the team was also fairly tight on cap space, so the decision to extend Jones would lead to other key pieces becoming available on the open market, unlikely to be retained.
This season we saw prime examples of that, as key contributors such as Xavier McKinney, who signed with the Green Bay Packers, and Saquon Barkley, who signed with the Philadelphia Eagles for a three-year deal worth over $37 million.
Now, with just over $1.1 million left in cap space (30th best in the NFL) the team is trying to fill in the gaps on a budget.
And as a result, their futures with the organization are likely intertwined.