RANT SPORTS – Current NFL Network analyst Marc Ross worked as the New York Giants assistant general manager under Jerry Reese from 2007-2017 and has his two Super Bowl rings to prove it.
Ross sums up the Giants fortune today in three words.
“They’re a mess.”
After losing to Carolina in Germany last Sunday the Giants are 2-8, tied with Jacksonville for the worst record in the league. They are 3-11 in their last 14 games dating back to last year, and have just one winning season in the past seven years.
When he worked in personnel for the Philadelphia Eagles, Buffalo Bills and the Giants, Ross was extremely efficient in knowing a good quarterback when he saw one.
And the bad ones.
He thinks Giants QB Daniel Jones fits into the latter category.
Boy, does he think that.
“They have a bad quarterback,’’ Ross said. “Nobody in history has had such a long time of playing so bad as Daniel Jones has. (It’s been) six years. It’s never happened before and it will likely never happen again.’’
Who is to blame?
The Giants current regime of general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Dabol inherited Jones. He was a first-round pick (6th overall) of the Dave Gettleman/Joe Judge Era.
Schoen/Dabol, however, kept Jones and gave him a new contract worth $160 million over four years before the start of the 2023 season.
“They’re to blame. They looked at him and thought he was good,” Ross said of the current Giants hierarchy. “They had the chance to start over and didn’t.’’
Fool’s gold playoff win now hampering team
Jones’ deal came after the 2022 season when the Giants finished 9-6-1 and made the playoffs as a wild-card team. They beat Minnesota, 31-24, in the wild-card game before being blown out by Philadelphia, 38-7, in the second round. Jones also had his best season, he threw his least amount of interceptions (5) and had his only quarterback rating over 90 (92.5).
For his career, Jones has a QB rating of 84.3 and has been under 80 the past two seasons. He’s thrown 70 touchdown passes in his six years to go with 47 interceptions and 50 fumbles.
“That year they went to the playoffs they fooled themselves into thinking they were a good team,’’ Ross said. “They hung around. Daniel Jones wasn’t good. But they hung around and made the playoffs so they thought he was good. He wasn’t good.
“Saquon (Barkley) would do something special and ignite them and a lot of breaks went their way that year. When they played good teams they got exposed. The Eagles destroyed them. That should have been the barometer for them as opposed to skating by in their other games.
“Outside of that year, this is what they are. (The playoff year) was kind of a mirage.’’
How did this come about?
To fall from 9-6-1 in Dabol’s first year that earned him Coach of the Year to 2-8 is quite a fall. How did it happen?
“You look at everything,’’ Ross said. “It’s a lot of things. Missed draft picks, missed free agency, they have a bad quarterback.
The Giants can get out of Jones’ contract without too much salary cap damage next year as long as he doesn’t get hurt this year.
“They’re not going to play him any more, because he has that injury guarantee,’’ Ross said. “They’ll bench him the rest of the season. And they won’t have to pay him and they’re out of it.”
Marc Ross is an analyst on NFL Network appearing on various programs such as NFL Total Access and NFL Now. Before joining the NFL Network as an analyst, Marc Ross worked for a year as a consultant for NFL Football Operations, and prior to that, Marc spent 11 years with the New York Giants, winning two Super Bowls in his time with the organization. Marc spent five seasons as the Vice President of Player Evaluation and six seasons as the Director of College Scouting