Daniel Jones studying Buffalo, Kansas City offenses
Daniel Jones of the Giants looks on before a game against the Washington Football Team at MetLife Stadium on Jan. 9. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Daniel Jones has spent a good amount of time watching Buffalo and Kansas City games this offseason in order to get a sense of the offensive systems his new coaches are bringing to the Giants.
“I see like everyone sees,” Jones said. “These offenses have scored a lot of points, created a lot of explosive plays and had a lot of success.”
Not that it was totally necessary to do all of that research. An hour or so plopped on the sofa on Jan. 23 revealed most of the same information gleaned from any in-depth studies. That was the day those two teams combined to score 31 points in the final two minutes of regulation and overtime during their epic playoff confrontation ending in Kansas City’s 42-36 overtime victory. After seeing the Giants post 20 points in their final three games combined while he was sidelined and helping them average 16.3 points per game over the past two seasons, that scoring explosion must have seemed to Jones like it took place in an entirely different sport than the one he has been playing for three years in New York.
Little did he know then that the coaches who helped engineer that postseason production were coming his way.
Brian Daboll, the offensive coordinator for Buffalo, was named head coach of the Giants shortly after that game. A few weeks later, Mike Kafka, Kansas City’s quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator, joined him as the offensive coordinator for the Giants.
Since then they have been merging the best elements of their two high-powered backgrounds to create a new version for their new team, tailored to fit the personnel the Giants have and the quarterback they are inheriting. On Monday they were finally able to deliver the first pages of that playbook as the voluntary offseason training program began.
The initial reaction to it: Excitement.
“We’re one day into it,” Jones said on Monday. “We had a couple hours of meetings and most of that is introductory information. We’re pretty early on. But you see things when you watch film of other teams and watching games on TV. This system has a lot and can do a lot of different things. That’s what’s exciting to me and I’m looking forward to learning it . . . I think it’s an awesome opportunity for all of us here.”
Jones isn’t the only one excited by the possibilities.
“I’ve seen guys in the offense, Cole Beasley, Stefon Diggs, those guys, I’ve seen them operate,” wide receiver Sterling Shepard said. “It has a chance to be explosive. We just have to do our part.”
While those systems arrive with similar philosophies and techniques, the Giants are lacking two very significant elements to their past successes. Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes have not come with the playbooks. Their role in this will be played by Jones and the comparisons to those MVP-caliber quarterbacks will be inevitable.
Daboll added to that pressure on Monday, saying he wants to see the same things from Jones that he got from Allen during their four years together in Buffalo — at least at this point in the very early offseason.
“It’s an all-encompassing job,” he said of his quarterback expectations. “It starts with you just being able to communicate effectively in the huddle or no-huddle operation well, really get to know your players and the body languages of each player and receiver, have some input on what he likes and doesn’t like, and ultimately evaluate his decision-making.”
While their successes are certainly something to try to emulate, Jones is careful not to go into full mimic mode regarding Allen or Mahomes.
“As a player you never want to be in a situation where you are trying to be someone else or you are doing things that aren’t you or comparing yourself in certain situations,” Jones said. “Any player at any position in any sport, I think that’s when you get into trouble. There are things you can pick up. Obviously there are things those two guys have done really well to help their teams be successful these past few years. [I’m] studying those things but more just looking at the system.”
That Jan. 23 game? It’s as good a place as any to start dissecting Buffalo and Kansas City. But the April 4 meetings, that’s where it started for the Giants and where they will begin to separate themselves from the pasts they and the sources of their offense have had.
Jones said studying those other teams is an exercise in the abstract “until you are really in the system learning from the coaches and hearing them talk it through.”
“We’re not quite there yet and I’m looking forward to that piece of it,” he said. “They had a ton of success in Buffalo with [their system] and there’s a reason. I’m looking forward to finding out what those reasons are.”
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.
