The New York Giants are signing Jameis Winston after a winding pursuit of quarterbacks that mostly featured names that would have been much more exciting five years ago. The Giants landed on Winston after flirting with a trio of aging Super Bowl champions. The 31-year-old Winston has had a roller-coaster career, but he should be an upgrade over the abysmal quarterback play the Giants have received over the past two seasons from Daniel Jones and a cast of others.
But this isn’t the end of the Giants’ quarterback quest this offseason. In some ways, it’s just the beginning. The Giants were always going to add a veteran quarterback, whether it was Winston, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson or Joe Flacco. But landing the future quarterback was always the top priority of the offseason. Co-owner John Mara said as much when he announced his decision to retain general manager Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll after last season’s 3-14 abomination.
“Obviously, the No. 1 issue for us going into this offseason is to find our quarterback of the future,” Mara said on the first day of the offseason.
While acknowledging the absence of any tangible results over the past two seasons, Mara spoke with confidence about the plan Schoen and Daboll presented for the future. That plan had to have centered around a quarterback. And there’s no way a quarterback with a 36-51 career record and has spent the past three seasons as a backup was the centerpiece of that plan.
So even though the tracking of a pensive Rodgers on a beach in Australia and the paparazzi-style documenting of Wilson’s visits to the Browns and Giants gave the impression of high stakes, the reality is it never mattered which veteran quarterback the Giants landed.
This desperate search for a veteran QB doesn’t inspire confidence. The Giants were willing to meet the asking prices of Stafford (at least $50 million per year) and the Rams (at least a second-round pick) to facilitate a trade for the 37-year-old. But the Giants were left at the altar, as Stafford elected to remain in Los Angeles.
Then the Giants decided to delve into Rodgers’ world despite having a front-row seat for his disastrous two-year stint with the New York Jets that ended with five wins and everyone getting fired last season. While that door isn’t completely closed, Rodgers seems to prefer any option — the Minnesota Vikings, the Pittsburgh Steelers, retirement — over joining the Giants.
It’s hard to give this regime the benefit of the doubt since their handling of the quarterback position landed them in this position three years into their tenure.
The real work begins now for Schoen and Daboll. Armed with a capable NFL quarterback, they can focus all of their energy on evaluating the quarterback prospects in this year’s draft class.
Schoen and Daboll have been around Mara long enough to understand what notes would hit the nostalgic owner’s ear. So it’s easy to imagine them pitching Mara on replicating the 2004 blueprint of signing Kurt Warner and having the vet serve as a bridge to a franchise quarterback in the draft.
The challenge in copying Ernie Accorsi’s defining move as Giants general manager is there doesn’t appear to be an Eli Manning in this class, let alone a Ben Roethlisberger or Philip Rivers. Accorsi had the fourth pick — one spot lower than where the Giants currently reside — when he boldly executed the draft day trade for Manning, who was picked first by the Chargers.
The price was steep — the No. 4 pick (Rivers), a 2004 third-round pick and first- and fifth-round picks in 2005 — but Accorsi had built up equity from getting the Giants to the Super Bowl four years earlier. Plus, it wasn’t hard to sell ownership on tapping into the Manning quarterback tree.
It remains to be seen if Schoen will develop the same level of conviction that Miami’s Cam Ward, who is widely viewed as the top quarterback in this class, could be a franchise savior. Mara would need to sign off on another major haul if Schoen decides to pursue a trade up for Ward while weighing the desperation level of a general manager he put on the hot seat.
The Ward discussion could be pointless, with signs pointing toward the Titans using the No. 1 pick on the quarterback. The Titans, who hired Mike Borgonzi as general manager this offseason, didn’t chase Stafford and haven’t been linked to a serious pursuit of Rodgers, Wilson or any other veteran starter on the carousel. There’s an appearance of a plan from the first-year GM, who has the obvious benefit of holding the No. 1 pick. But Borgonzi also has the advantage of not facing a win-now mandate with a roster that went 3-14 last season.
If the Titans stay at No. 1 and take Ward, then what for the Giants? If they loved the other quarterbacks in this class, would they have tried so desperately to land Stafford, who would have been expensive (in cap space and draft capital) and would have been expected to start for multiple years?
Was the Giants well-documented scouting of Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders a sign that they’d take him with the third pick — assuming the Browns don’t take him at No. 2 — despite a legion of skeptics forming as the pre-draft process has progressed? Would they pull a surprise reminiscent of the Daniel Jones pick at No. 6 in 2019 and take Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart at No. 3?
Could they target Sanders, Dart or another quarterback later in the first round by trading back from No. 3 or packaging picks to move up from No. 34? The scenarios are endless, each rife with long-lasting consequences.
That’s why the draft decision is far more important than the Winston signing, even if the washed-up quarterback soap opera boosted NFL Network ratings for a few weeks. Maybe the gun-slinging Winston will amplify the Giants’ receiving talent, allowing Schoen and Daboll to prove their hypothesis that Jones was solely responsible for the offense’s woes. Or maybe Winston will continue his maddening penchant for interceptions that led the No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft to flame out in Tampa Bay, New Orleans and Cleveland.
However things go with Winston, who has 19 touchdowns and 20 interceptions in the past three seasons, he’s nothing more than a placeholder. The Giants’ fate rests on their next quarterback decision. That part of the plan will be revealed in five weeks.
(Photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images)
