As Daniel Jones prepares to make his first start for the New York Giants, superstar back Saquon Barkley has a few words of advice.
Daniel Jones is starting sooner than the New York Giants hoped, but he’s here. Now the rookie quarterback needs to perform.
He’ll lean heavily on his All-Pro running back—Saquon Barkley. The rusher had a few words of encouragement for Jones on Friday.
“Be you,” Barkley said via SNY. “You don’t gotta be anybody else besides himself. You’re here for a reason, you got here for a reason. You don’t got to impress anybody else. Only people you got to impress is the people in this locker room and the people in this facility. And he’s already did that because one, they’re the team that drafted him and two, he already got the respect from us on his team just by the way he carries himself as a person and his work ethic. You can see even when he wasn’t the starting quarterback the last two weeks, just how he operates.”
The decision to take Jones was met with widespread backlash from the media and the fanbase. The Duke quarterback was not expected to go as high as No. 6 and many believed the Giants could have still scooped up Jones with the 17th selection.
We may never know for sure, but that’s largely irrelevant now. Clearly, the Giants believed Jones could become the team’s next franchise quarterback and his transition into the role is starting earlier than expected.
The original plan was to play Eli Manning all season long in hopes of securing a playoff spot. The calculus changed dramatically after New York suffered two embarrassing losses to open the season.
Now it’s up to Jones to step up for the Giants. Barkley sounds excited about his rookie quarterback can bring to the field.
