With Daniel Jones, what you see is what you get
Giants quarterback Daniel Jones during warmups before a preseason game against the Carolina Panthers on Friday at MetLife Stadium. Credit: Noah K. Murray
During a morning radio interview this past week, Daniel Jones was asked a routine question, one that didn’t require an in-depth knowledge or even interest in football.
The quarterback agreed to a new four-year, $160 million deal with the Giants during the offseason, and the natural query was to find out if there was something he’d bought for himself or someone else once that first direct deposit landed in his account.
He deflected and stammered a bit, definitely unwilling to share.
The hosts pressed him a bit. Surely there was some splurge that he embarked on to celebrate this life-changing money and the accomplishments that led up to it.
Finally, he confessed there was.
“Furniture,” he said.
Furniture.
The man inked a contract with a $36 million signing bonus and $104 million guaranteed, and his first instinct was to go shopping for a new sectional.
Maybe it’s for the best, then, that Jones said he isn’t going to appear on the second season of the Netflix show “Quarterback.” Most of us dread shopping for our own furniture; imagine the Emmy-worthy tedium of watching someone else do it?
I just can’t seem to decide between the oak and the walnut.
I like the fabric pattern on this ottoman, but the cushioning feels a little too soft.
Jones appearing on the show might make Kirk Cousins’ tepid takes and wardrobe choices look like a John Bonham biopic in comparison.
“I thought it was interesting watching those guys and watching each of their stories,” Jones said of the first season, which aired this summer and featured Cousins, Patrick Mahomes and Marcus Mariota. “I thought they did a really good job with the show. Just not necessarily for me.”
That’s exactly what you’d expect someone who has agreed to appear on the show to say, perhaps blood sworn to some Manning-family Cosa Nostra NDA to keep production a secret. It’s worth wondering if Jones, with his hedgy denials, actually might be a covert participant.
It’s not as if there are a whole lot of excuses for players to pass on the opportunity anyway. It’s obviously not a distraction, given that two of the subjects made the playoffs and one won the Super Bowl. It doesn’t seem to be too invasive, either. And certainly, from Jones’ perspective, he would know he was in good narrative hands if he were to sign on, given that the show is made by Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions. His mentor’s brother would never allow him to look foolish or cast him in a poor light.
But the biggest reason to believe Jones isn’t may be the exact reason he gave.
It’s not football . . . so it’s not necessarily for him.
This is a player who, Giants coach Brian Daboll said in a separate radio interview, tried to get into the Detroit Lions’ facility on the teams’ day off between joint practices and the preseason game last week to go over a few plays that hadn’t been executed to his liking.
“I’m like, ‘Dude, you have to take a break once in a while,’ ” Daboll said. “But he’s on full blast all the time. He’s studying, working, a guy you have to pull back . . . He always wants to work.”
Just to wrap up the anecdote: Jones didn’t get to go to the Lions’ facility but ironed out those reps in a workout on the turf at Ford Field before the preseason game in which he and most of the starters did not play. He did that one better with a tidy opening drive in Friday night’s preseason game against the Panthers, completing 8 of 9 passes for 69 yards and a touchdown.
The Giants love that about him. The only shows they care about him starring in are the 17 three-hour live broadcasts this fall and winter, and maybe a few encore episodes in January and February.
That’s where Jones’ focus is, too. Always.
Think about it this way: Jones is the quarterback and now highest-paid player of a New York team that is coming off a playoff win and has all the hopes and aspirations that this season will be even better. He should be a star.
But have you seen him appear in a commercial? Has he been spotted much out and about on the town? Does he even have a weekly radio spot that generates anything close to buzz?
This is the rare player who has virtually no footprint on social media. During his negotiations with the Giants, he might very well have scrubbed the team from his profiles the way other disgruntleds often do. Who would have noticed?
Surely, though, there must be something there to Jones, something beyond football and . . . furniture.
“Yeah, if you know him,” wide receiver Sterling Shepard told Newsday. “Not a lot of people know him like that.”
Would watching Jones on “Quarterbacks” be enlightening?
“Everybody’s story is interesting in some form or fashion, so yeah,” Shepard said. “It’s all football stuff and the dude loves football, knows football like the back of his hand, so I think it’d be pretty interesting. Anybody’s point of view on football who knows football is good and interesting to me.”
The other stuff? What we’d consider the good stuff? Probably not so much.
Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka spent the years before his arrival with the Giants last season coaching in Kansas City, so he got to know Mahomes very well. He was a fan of this year’s show.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I remember all of that stuff,’ ” Kafka said. “It was a cool show. A really cool deal. What you see is really who [Mahomes] is, a great dude.”
We probably don’t need “Quarterbacks” to find out who Jones really is.
It might just be that we’d only get exactly what we see.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
