Giants quarterback Daniel Jones has gone on quite the roller coaster between last April and now. Unlike the first three years of his NFL career, this has been an extremely fun part of the ride for him. Thanks to the Giants declining his fifth-year option in the spring, he’s about to get paid handsomely after a breakout 2022 season.
How handsome will this payday be, though? If you take a look at Spotrac, Jones’ market value is $26.2 million per year and nearly $80 million over the life of a three-year contract. But it’s higher than that, according to some experts.
Ryan Dunleavy wrote about how the New York Post got opinions from six different people who know what they’re talking about. This includes NFL agents, as well as current or former high-ranking league executives with contract experience.
There were some varying degrees of opinion regarding contract projections, but they all generally said the same thing: Jones is looking at an annual average salary of at least $30 million. That’s because there’s no quarterback currently under a multi-year deal making between $14 million and $29.5 million.
Every expert who spoke with the Post agreed Jones would make somewhere between $29.5 million (Ryan Tannehill’s average annual value) and $40 million (what Dak Prescott is making with the Dallas Cowboys).
One executive thinks a four-year deal for $30-35 million per year is a “compromise”. For those not wanting to do the math, this would be a total of $120-140 million. They also said it’d include somewhere between $80-90 million guaranteed.
Someone else thinks the starting point should be $35 million per year. The rationale is it’d be the cost of what the Giants would need to put a salary-cap-restrictive franchise tag on him to prevent Jones from hitting free agency in 2023 and 2024.
Since Jones just beat Kirk Cousins in the playoffs, CBS Sports Joel Corry thinks Jones’ camp can use that as leverage:
Kirk signed a one-year extension for $35 million, and I would say, “I just beat this guy. I need to be above that.” The playoffs for Jones were one step forward, one step back. He has to look at the rest of the market and how other teams are going to look at him. You could be overplaying your hand to say, “I’ll take my chances in free agency if you don’t franchise tag me.”
Former Jets general manager, Mike Tannenbaum, also thinks Jones’ next payday will be closer to Prescott’s $40 million salary than Tannehill’s $29.5 million salary.
Any way you slice it, the Giants’ signal-caller has all the leverage, and signs point to him getting a huge raise. New York bet against him taking a leap forward by not exercising that option, which made lots of sense at the time. But he did, and now general manager Joe Schoen will have to pay the man to keep him with Big Blue.
It seems like he’s well aware of that and is very willing to do so.
Matt Musico can be reached at matt.musico@xlmedia.com and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
