The Giants’ 2023 season took another unfortunate turn when quarterback Daniel Jones suffered an ACL tear. That will sideline him for the remainder of the campaign, the first of his sizeable extension which has invited speculation about his future.

When speaking publicly about the injury for the first time, Jones was understandably asked about what effect (if any) he felt the injury would have on his long-term future in New York. The 26-year-old declined to address the topic, to no surprise, focusing instead on his plans for surgery and rehab. He indicated (via Zach Braziller of the New York Post) he is waiting for swelling in his knee to go down before deciding on a firm operation date, adding it will likely happen in the coming weeks.

“I think I’m focused on what I’m doing right now and trying to get my knee ready for the surgery and ready for the process to come back stronger,” the former No. 6 pick said. “So, in terms of my future, and what I’m thinking about it, it’s to attack this process and come back stronger, and a better football player in the future.”

Jones inked a four-year, $160MM deal this offseason in a show of confidence from the Joe Schoen-Brian Daboll regime. That pact – which has already been restructured – calls for $36MM in guaranteed salary and a $47.1MM cap hit in 2024. While those figures ensure the Duke alum will be in place next season, speculation has increased regarding how open the Giants could be to acquiring a successor as early as the upcoming draft. Prior to the Week 9 game in which Jones went down, Fox Sports’ Ralph Vacchiano indicated the team was committed to Jones given the term remaining on his deal and the financial penalties associated with cutting or trading him.

Given what has transpired since then, however, things may have changed. Vacchiano has since written that if the Giants find themselves at or near the top of the board in April, “there is no doubt they will draft” an heir apparent to Jones. USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye, in particular, would represent options likely too good to pass up if they were within the team’s range. Sitting at 2-7 and with Tommy DeVito now at the helm of the offense, the Giants could easily find themselves facing an interesting decision with respect to Jones in the spring.

Cutting the latter before June 1 in 2025 would result in a $22.2MM cap charge, a sizeable figure but one which could be justified in absorbing if a succession plan were to be in place by that point. Along with New York’s actions this spring, Jones’ ability to remain healthy and return to last year’s form in 2024 will of course be a major storyline to follow next year in the event signs point to it being his last with the Giants.

Jones added there is no further damage in his knee beyond the ACL tear, and that the neck injury which sidelined him for three games will not require surgery. While that news is encouraging, there will be plenty at stake for him when he next takes the field for the Giants, a team which will be worth watching closely in the offseason if their 2023 struggles continue.

The Giants’ offense is on track to move closer to full strength as early as next week. Quarterback Daniel Jones has been cleared for contact, as first reported by Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post.

Jones was actually given the green light prior to Sunday’s game, Dunleavy notes, but it comes as no surprise that the Giants played it safe by ensuring at least one week of full practice. Given the injury suffered by Tyrod Taylor on Sunday, Jones’ return would be welcomed by a team in desperate need of improvement in the passing game.

The Giants mustered negative nine passing yards in their overtime loss to the Jets on Sunday, a game in which undrafted rookie Tommy DeVito took over following Taylor’s injury. New York’s offense relied all-but exclusively on running back Saquon Barkley, who logged 36 carries in the game. The latter will no doubt remain the focal point of the Giants’ offense once Jones returns, but such a scenario will give the team another starter in the fold.

Jones has missed the past three games due to his latest neck injury, one which has been described as being less severe than the one suffered in 2021 which ended his season. The risk of reinjury was high in the event Jones was rushed back into action, however, making it no surprise the Giants elected to wait until the former first-rounder logged a slate of full practices before bringing him back into the lineup.

An IR stint was never a consideration on New York’s part, but recent reports pointed to Week 10 as their targeted return date for Jones. Bringing their franchise passer back one week earlier than that would help compensate for Taylor’s absence in the event he is forced to miss time, but it would no doubt invite questions about Jones’ ability to rebound from a slow start to the season. 2023 – the first year of his four-year, $160MM extension – has not gone according to plan for the 26-year-old individually or the 2-6 Giants collectively.

Jones’ participation in practice will be worth watching in the coming days as he prepares for a likely return to action in advance of New York’s Week 9 game against the Raiders. It will also be interesting to see what moves (if any) the Giants make in the next two days with respect to the trade deadline.

OCTOBER 29: Unlike Schefter, Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL.com do not offer a timetable for Jones’ return. The duo reports that Jones is dealing with weakness in his left (non-throwing shoulder), though they add that he is regaining strength and confirm that the injury is not expected to present long-term complications.

Rapoport and Pelissero classify Jones’ injury as a disc issue. Again, the current ailment is not as serious as the one that brought a premature end to Jones’ 2021 campaign, which they also describe as a disc problem. Interestingly, Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News believes that is the first time anyone has acknowledged that the 2021 injury was indeed related to a disc and not a “neck strain.”

A source tells Ralph Vacchiano of Fox Sports that “it’s a bit of a guess” as to when Jones will return. However, the team truly does not believe he will be shut down for the rest of the season and that he will be back on the field “sooner than later.”

OCTOBER 28: The Giants are now aiming to have Jones return for Week 10, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Jordan Raanan. That contest – against the Cowboys – will likely be the first before which Jones will have been cleared for full contact, making it a more reasonable target than next week’s contest against the Raiders. While the latter game could still be in play, more progress would need to be made in his recovery in the coming days. Two more consecutive starts for Taylor are therefore likely on tap.

OCTOBER 27: Week 8 will mark the third consecutive missed game for Daniel Jones as he continues to recover from his latest neck injury. The Giants quarterback’s process in that regard remains slow moving, but he he still on track to return to action this season.

Jones’ latest neck ailment is not considered as serious as the two others he has dealt with in his NFL career, but it has already lingered over a notable stretch of time. The 26-year-old still has not been cleared for contact, which has led to continued questions about his ability to suit up again in 2023. Head coach Brian Daboll spoke on that front when asked about Jones’ situation on Friday.

“He’s getting better and we’ll see where he is next week,” Daboll said, via CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones, when asked if New York’s starting signal-caller is under the threat of being shut down for the year. “I don’t have a crystal ball with injuries, but he is getting better and we’ll see where he is next week.”

The Giants have elected not to place Jones on IR, a move which would have guaranteed at least a four-week absence. The fact the team has instead preferred a game-to-game approach proves their optimism in his ability to recover in full soon, which would also mark a faster return than his most recent neck issue in 2021. As the CBS report notes, however, there is no longer a “perceptible difference” in Jones’ movements in practice – he was cleared to throw last week – compared to before he suffered the injury.

As a result, it will be interesting to see how much longer he will remain without clearance for contact. That will not happen until next week at the earliest, by which point the trade deadline will have come and gone. The Giants could be active in moving players in the coming days, though it has become clear running back Saquon Barkley will not be among them. Upon his return, Jones (in the first season of his four-year, $160MM contract) will aim to rebound from a poor start to the 2023 campaign, something which has been true of New York’s offense as a whole.

In the meantime, the Giants will continue to rely on veteran Tyrod Taylor under center. The 34-year-old helped guide the team to a 14-7 win in Week 7, but Daboll has made it clear Jones will reprise his role as starter when healthy, a point during the season which remains unclear.

The final part of the Giants’ long-running Daniel Jones–Saquon Barkley retention plan is still going, with the team remaining in talks with the Pro Bowl running back ahead of the July 17 franchise tag deadline. But the earlier discussions were more complex in nature.

Not only did the Giants need to find a way to keep both Jones and Barkley off the 2023 market, but they were negotiating with a quarterback with an uncertain price tag. Injuries and inconsistency during Jones’ first three years led the Giants to pass on his fifth-year option in 2022. The former No. 6 overall pick ended up navigating his contract year well, piloting Big Blue to the playoffs and setting himself up for a big payday.

Jones became the first quarterback to sign an extension with the team that declined his fifth-year option, and while the final numbers checked in far higher than anyone would have expected at this point last year, the four-year Giants starter is believed to have asked for a monster contract. As negotiations commenced, Jones’ camp sought a $47MM-per-year extension, Dan Duggan of The Athletic notes (subscription required).

That number is higher than what we heard leading up to his deal. A February report indicated that Jones, after changing agents, was gunning for a $45MM-AAV extension. It turned out the Giants needed to move their quarterback down from a number that would have at the time made him the third-highest-paid QB — per average salary — in the NFL. Jones’ ask would have placed him in front of Kyler Murray and Deshaun Watson‘s AAVs. Subsequent extensions for Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts have raised the market to $52MM per year, but when the Giants hammered out their Jones deal, only Aaron Rodgers was past $50MM. And Rodgers’ 2022 deal turned out to be a uniquely structured pact that produced a trade.

The Giants ended up reaching a happy medium with Jones, giving him the same overall terms — four years, $160MM — Dak Prescott and Matthew Stafford reached with their respective teams in the previous two offseasons. Prescott also did better than Jones on the guarantee front, securing $95MM fully guaranteed at the same offseason juncture Jones ($81MM locked in) scored his payday. Prescott possessed leverage of a whopping cap number — from a second franchise tag — hitting the Cowboys’ books in 2021. Jones, however, enjoyed negotiating weapons of an imminent free agency trip and the prospect of the Giants losing Barkley. New York found a way to retain both players, but Barkley is less than two weeks from being tied to the $10.1MM running back tag this season. The Giants were planning to tag Jones — at $32.4MM — had no deal been struck in March.

Jones, 26, managing to parlay a 15-touchdown pass season into a $40MM-per-year windfall may go down as one of the better negotiating coups in recent memory, but the Duke product was targeting a bottom-tier pass-catching corps that had sustained injuries and lost Kadarius Toney via trade (after the 2021 first-rounder missed most of the Giants portion of his season with injury). Jones offered an efficient passing performance to lift the Giants past the Vikings in the wild-card round, adding 78 rushing yards in that game. This followed a career year on the ground for Jones as well; he finished with 708 rushing yards to further aid the Giants’ shorthanded offense.

While the Jones deal has been scrutinized, the Giants can also escape it with fairly minimal damage by 2025. Should Jones’ 2022 season prove fluky, the Giants can move on by making the QB a post-June 1 cut in 2025 and absorb an $18MM dead-money hit. All parties will hope this agreement ends better, as the Giants are committed to the Dave Gettleman-era draftee for at least two seasons.