Everyone is an NFL GM Now

Growing up, NFL coverage was so frustratingly simple with guys like Mike Golic making lazy predictions like ‘this game will be won by whoever controls the line of scrimmage’. Guys were getting rich off stating the obvious and vomiting up nonsense cliches. Mike Ditka’s entire media career revolved around telling us that a team won a game because that team ‘wanted it more’.

Fast forward to 2023 and the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that everyone and their mothers have transformed into football geniuses, but more specifically, they’re all team-building experts.

With social media tricking its users into providing them with free content all day long under the guise of ‘building a brand’, the NFL community as a whole has become full of make-believe general managers who all suddenly care about a team’s cap space.

So all hell broke loose this week after Daniel Jones and the New York Giants agreed to a 4-year $160 million contract. Jones will be making an average salary of $40 million a year making him tied as the 7th highest-paid QB along with Matty Stafford and Dak Prescott.

And if you didn’t watch the 2022 season then that contract sounds insane.

Prior to last season, Daniel Jones was the milquetoast face of Dave Gettleman’s failures. There was nothing Jones did at Duke that would explain him being selected as the no. 6 overall pick. All of the draft pundits said Drew Lock was better than Jones and Lock was picked in the 2nd round. Jones would’ve been available later in the draft.

Then Jones went out there and proved all the haters right as he fumbled the ball up and down the field. He showed flashes of talent but for the most part, his career had been a disappointment. So if you stopped watching Giants games before the 2022 season then I totally understand being astonished by the size of Jones’s contract.

But last season happened.

Jones went 9-6-1 as a starter playing with an average offensive line. His best wide receiver was Richie James who led the team with 57 catches. The year prior, James had a grand total of 23 catches with the 49ers.

It’s easy to point out that Jones only threw 15 touchdown passes while conveniently excluding his production as a running threat. He ran for 708 yards and 7 touchdowns. The biggest and most valuable part of his game is his ability to scramble for first downs and extend drives. His 57 first downs were Top 10 in the league ahead of most running backs.

It’s odd that so many ‘smart’ fans and media people all have the same blindspot when it comes to the value of a running quarterback. There is still this antiquated belief that running quarterbacks are some gimmick even though we all just watched Jalen Hurts QB sneak his way to a Super Bowl.

Daniel Jones has proven he’s good enough to not only drag an average team to the playoffs but actually win a big postseason game against the Minnesota Vikings.

Kyler Murray has made the playoffs once. He lost 11-34 to the Rams and threw 2 interceptions and had a 40.9 passer rating. Murray is the third highest-paid QB in the NFL. But somehow it’s absurd that Daniel Jones is even asking for a contract. He should be playing for free according to the internet GMs.

These same internet GMs also ignore how crucial it is for a rebuilding organization in the midst of establishing a winning culture to show their own players as well as the entire NFL that you are going to pay guys who help you win.

The Giants need to sign Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley and if that means they need to overpay to do it then they’re going to overpay.

How can new GM, Joe Schoen and new coach, Brian Daboll, expect to bring in the best talent and build for a Super Bowl when everyone in the league sees them make the playoffs for the first time in 6 years and immediately refuse to pay their 2 star players?

Here are the next 3 highest-paid quarterbacks behind Daniel Jones: Derek Carr, Kirk Cousins and Jared Goff. Is it truly that unfathomable for Jones to make more money than these 3 guys who suck every other game?

Plus, teams figure out how to acquire top talent with seemingly brutal cap space situations. I will never pretend to care about how an NFL team chooses to spend their money as if it comes from my checking account.

There are teams desperately trying to acquire a guy who spent a week smoking crack in a dark cave right now but this Daniel Jones contract is the real calamity. Teams are going to give up every draft pick for Danica Patrick’s ex but the Giants are the losers. Ok.

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