Giants quarterback Daniel Jones cleared for contact
Daniel Jones of the New York Giants in the first half against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Three days after Giants coach Brian Daboll left open the possibility that Daniel Jones would not play again this season, the quarterback has been cleared for contact by medical professionals.
Daboll said he didn’t learn until after the Jets game on Sunday that Jones was cleared. Because Jones already had been ruled out by the Giants' medical staff on Friday, he was not eligible to play Sunday.
"Met with the spine surgeon, the doctor. And the doctor cleared him," Daboll said Monday about the timeline. "I've sat down with them. That is what they told me. He’s cleared from that doctor. [Medical staff] told me he was out [on Friday]. So he was out. They told me after the game that they looked at him and he’d be ready to go [this week]."
Jones has missed the last three games with the second neck injury of his career, this one coming on a fourth-quarter sack by Miami's Andrew Van Ginkel on Oct. 8. NFL.com recently reported that the second neck injury was “in the same area of the neck” as the first injury, which forced him to miss the final six games of the 2021 season.
Jones has said this was not the same injury and was confident he would return this season. He has said the current injury mostly affected his left (non-throwing) shoulder.
"It's a different injury," he said recently. "I think when you see other guys who have similar situations as mine and they are able to progress and come back, I'm following a similar timeline to that. That is kind of the optimism, and, yeah, it's a different injury than last time."
Last Friday, Daboll sounded a somewhat pessimistic tone about the quarterback. When asked if Jones would play again this season, Daboll agreed with reporters that he had given a "less declarative" answer than he had previously, But now Jones is expected to return Sunday against the Raiders.
"It’ll be great to have DJ back," linebacker Micah McFadden said Monday. "Huge player for us, brings a lot of confidence to the offense, I think, and throughout the whole team. Having a captain and a leader back, I think that’s huge."
Jones has thrown for 884 yards, two touchdowns and six interceptions in five games. His quarterback rating of 71.7 is last among regular starters (at least five games). He has been a limited participant in practice in the past two weeks.
"He’s our starting quarterback. He’s our leader," Saquon Barkley said after Sunday's game. "I don’t want to speak for him, but whenever he’s able to get back out there, definitely going to be helpful and we’re going to do what we can to help make his job easier."
The Giants need a starting quarterback. Backup quarterback Tyrod Taylor left Sunday’s game with injured ribs. He spent Sunday night at Hackensack University Medical Center and was discharged Monday afternoon. The Giants said in a mid-afternoon statement that Taylor had returned to the team facility.
Third-string quarterback Tommy DeVito took the rest of the snaps Sunday against the Jets after Taylor left midway through the second quarter. DeVito completed 2 of 7 passes for minus-1 yard.
At some point during Sunday's game, it might have been prudent for Barkley to take some snaps as a Wildcat quarterback. (He has done so before.) Daboll said he told the players in the locker room at halftime that the offense would run through Barkley, who rushed for 128 yards on a career-high 36 carries.
The 2-6 Giants' season is on the brink. They are in last place in the NFC East and currently in the No. 4 draft position. Every team in the division has scored at least 171 points except the Giants, who have scored 95, by far the lowest point total in the league. Their minus-92 point differential also is last in the NFL, with the Patriots second-to-last at minus-90.
Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.
