The next thing you’ll hear about Daniel Jones is how the Minnesota Vikings or some other team is interested in trading for him before the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday.
And the logical question a wise general manager in desperate need of a solid quarterback should be asking is: Why Daniel Jones?
Why that guy?
Jones plays for the Indianapolis Colts now and continues to be one of the most disappointing and under-performing reasons that team has been in garage sale mode for nearly a month, as losses increased and optimism dropped off the table.
The Colts lost again on Sunday, this time 27-23 to the Dallas Cowboys, and the way this game went is a testament to why Jones is fools gold at the trade deadline.
Jones threw an interception on the Colts’ final offensive play to seal their loss.
Before that misbegotten pass, he threw an incompletion. Before that, he had an intentional grounding. And he had an incompletion before that.
The Colts had the football with 1:08 to play and needed to score a touchdown and pull out a victory. But that wasn’t Dan Marino or Dan Fouts playing for the Colts.
That was Daniel Jones, who, rather than comeback wins, had mostly delivered ways to lose and disappointment during his time with the Indy and the New York Giants before that.
“Didn’t finish the way we want to finish,” Colts embattled head coach Shane Steichen said afterward.
Of course not, coach, your quarterback is Daniel Jones to whom you committed last season as your starter before he got hurt and crashed your season. You quarterback is Daniel Jones to whom you also committed to this year before he remained healthy and still freakin’ helped crash your now 2-7 season.
Steichen will probably be fired at the end of the season for his grand commitment. And there’s no telling what the next new general manager and head coach will do with Jones.
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But that’s only if Jones is still in Indy after the 4 p.m. Tuesday trade deadline.
The Minnesota Vikings reached out to the Colts in recent days about acquiring Jones.
That is significant proof that the Vikings have great confidence in their reputation for developing quarterbacks but are equally tone-deaf about their reputation for making massive mistakes in deciding what quarterbacks they want on their roster.
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The idea the Vikings or any other team might think Jones is a solution to a quarterback problem rather than a multiplication of a problem is curious. Because it forgets Jones’ history of failing.
Jones threw an interception this game, and it marked the fourth consecutive game he’s done that. Indeed, he’s had only one game this season in which he has not thrown an interception.
And, to be fair, Jones has generally accepted responsibility for his mistakes and his role on an offense that needs to play better.
But there was a moment on Sunday when Jones seemed to blame the uncertain situation the Colts find themselves in with the deadline approaching as a reason the club’s collective performance hasn’t been as good as expected.
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“There’s been so much stuff going on and distractions and different things, and we’ve got to do a better job handling it as a team, collectively executing together, as a group,” Jones said.
Wait.
The reason there has been so much “stuff going on” is because the club, led by Jones, has been playing poorly, which led management to begin considering the makeup of the team next year rather than the rest of this year.
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If Jones played better and the Colts won more, there wouldn’t be “so much stuff going on,” other than winning games.
“… We got to do a good job executing together,” Jones said.
True. Jones may get a chance to do that on another team that will see him as improving their situation – kind of like the Colts did before this season began.