Daniel Jones makes a lot of sense for the Jets – Tiki Barber

When you don’t have a quarterback, you’re linked with every quarterback. That’s the message I sent to a friend when they forwarded me the quotes from former Giants running back Tiki Barber on the Jets making sense for Daniel Jones.

“They didn’t draft Daniel Jones. They still got a lot of pieces they got to get in place before they’re viable — before they can even beat the Eagles,” Barber said. “Daniel Jones makes a lot of sense for the Jets, as crazy as it sounds.”

As far as we know Aaron Rodgers is still in the dark about his own future, although Jeff Darlington recently reported that the Packers would like to have him back in 2023, and as long as they show they’re still serious about winning, I can’t see Aaron moving anywhere.

Derek Carr is still mulling his future, although as of today he’s only visited two teams, the Saints and the Jets. The Saints started creating cap space earlier today by converting some of Ryan Ramczyk’s salary, opening up over $10 million in cap space.

Although they started the off-season in the red to the tune of over $40 million, they have to do something just to become cap compliant, let alone sign a marquee free-agent quarterback.

This brings us back to the original point about free-agent Daniel Jones. Earlier this week it was reported that the Giants were very interested in bringing Jones back and working out a long-term deal with him. If they were unable to do that, they could place the franchise tag on him before the 7th of March.

They could even place the ‘non-exclusive’ tag on him which would allow the Jets to negotiate and offer him a deal. If the Giants failed to match the Jets would need to send two first-round picks to the Giants, something I just don’t see happening.

Jones recently switched his agency from CAA to Athletes First and according to one source with PFT, it was down to finances:

So what does Jones want? There are two possibilities. One, he’s willing to do a deal for less than CAA was willing to accept. Two, he wants more than CAA was able to get.

As one source explained it, it’s the latter. Jones wants more than the Giants have offered. Possibly as much as $45 million per year, or more.

Interestingly Athletes First represent Aaron Rodgers as well as Daniel Jones. They’re pretty good at negotiating huge contracts for quarterbacks.

The issue here is that Daniel Jones isn’t Aaron Rodgers and while he had a good year in 2022, it wasn’t exactly dominant. Throwing 15 touchdowns to 5 interceptions is a decent return, but it’s not a $45 million return. Last year he threw 10 touchdowns to 7 interceptions and the year before it was 11 touchdowns to 10 interceptions. Although his accuracy has improved, he hasn’t come close to touching that 24-touchdown mark he set as a rookie in 2019.

Does Jones make more sense for the Jets than the Giants? That’s debatable, the Giants are an incomplete roster but I’d argue the Jets are too. He certainly doesn’t make more sense at $45 million per year.

I also don’t think he’s getting $45 million from the Giants, which leads me to believe that he’ll just end up getting franchise tagged. I’d put the chances of Daniel Jones being the starting QB for the Jets in 2023 at slim to non-existent.