Philadelphia Eagles: Grading the NFC East’s Day 1 selections
While the Oakland Raiders certainly pulled off the biggest suprises of the draft in selecting Clelin Ferrell fourth overall, over the likes of Josh Allen, the New York Giants followed close behind by selecting Duke quarterback Daniel Jones with the sixth pick.
Now it’s not particularly surprising that the team opted to select a quarterback with their first first-round pick, as they were heavily, heavily criticized for selecting Saquon Barkley over, say, Sam Darnold last year, but even the most overzealous Duke and/or Giants fan has to admit this was a major reach.
Ranked the sixth (!?) best quarterback in the class by ESPN, Jones is a really hard player accurately scout because he was consistently surrounded with subpar players and never looked particularly great at the helm of the Blue Devils’ offense.
Leading his team to an even 19-19 record over three seasons as the team’s QB1, Jones only threw for 8201 yards, and 52 touchdowns over 38 games in Durham; 2805 more yards and two fewer touchdowns than Dwayne Haskins in 16 more games.
Sure, most people will point to Jones’ connection with Eli Manning and the Manning family, as his head coach at Duke David Cutcliffe coached both Manning brothers in college, and helped with their ‘Manning Passing Academy’, which Jones attended, but is finding the ‘next Eli Manning’ really more important than selecting the best player available?
While the future may prove us all wrong, as any time a team selects their quarterback without having to trade up it’s considered a bonus, but Jones feels like the wrong pick at the wrong time, and probably would have been there at 17.