The most important position in football is the quarterback spot and it’s not close. The 49ers are probably the best roster in the league top to bottom outside of the QB position. The only reason they haven’t won a super bowl yet is because of QB play, and if they don’t win the super bowl this year it will be because of QB play. Getting a franchise quarterback right is maybe the most important job of a GM, and fucking it up can have huge consequences(see: Jets)

My point in bringing this up is that I’m going to look at Schoen’s decisions through the lens of “what should he have done to maximize his chances of obtaining a franchise quarterback?”

When Joe Schoen was hired, he(along with 90% of pundits and fans) did not think Daniel Jones would be the franchise quarterback of the Giants. The team was widely projected to be awful and end up with a top draft pick, where Schoen probably expected to draft one of Young, Stroud, or Richardson to be his franchise quarterback. So, he declined Jones’ 5th year option. This decision made sense at the time. Why pay Jones $22 million when you could use that money on offensive linemen or receivers to help your newly drafted QB develop?

And then, out of nowhere, Daniel Jones led the team to 9.5 wins, a playoff berth, and a road playoff win where the team scored 31 points

Now, that plan to draft your franchise quarterback is basically dead. Trading up from 25 to the top 4 would be obscenely costly and not a wise decision for a team that needs to rebuild their entire roster. So, Schoen had to look to free agency to fill the quarterback position.

Again: What should Schoen have done to maximize his chances of obtaining a franchise quarterback?

The best guys available in free agency were guys like Derek Carr, Jimmy G, Gardner Minshew, and Baker Mayfield. These players were either too old to be a long term solution at QB(Carr, Garoppolo) or haven’t shown they have the ability to be a franchise QB(Mayfield, Minshew).

As far as I’m concerned, none of these options had a better chance of being a franchise quarterback than Daniel Jones. Yes Minshew or Mayfield would have been cheaper, but the QB position is so important that it’s worth any amount of money to solve it long term.

It’s easy to forget because this year has been such a trainwreck, but Daniel Jones was legitimately good in 2022. Look beyond raw TD totals. He led the team to 9.5 wins and a road playoff win, the 15th most points per game in the NFL despite an awful supporting cast, and the lowest INT% in football. Overall, he was a borderline top 10 QB and showed the potential that he could be a franchise QB. If he could take that next step into being just a little bit better than he was in 2022, he would be a top 10 quarterback.

Out of all of the available quarterbacks last offseason, the ONLY one who had the CHANCE of becoming a franchise quarterback was Daniel Jones.

Last offseason there were only 2 things the Giants could have done if they wanted to maximize their chances of getting a franchise QB

1: Keep Daniel Jones

2: Roll with Tyrod or another not good quarterback and do the tank they expected to happen year 1

Anyone with a brain knows that option 2 was never going to happen. You don’t go from a divisional playoff game to tanking the next year. It would be impossible to justify.

The Giants HAD to keep Daniel Jones. There was just no other realistic option.

The money is a lot but

A: If you get a franchise quarterback, it’s worth it, and Jones was the only available one who showed that potential

B: The contract is nowhere near as bad as people say. There’s an out after year 2 and he’s really only getting “$40 million” for 1 year(next year)

Overall, while I understand that looking back on it, yeah we should have done option 2 and committed to the tank this year, that was never going to happen. Keeping Daniel Jones was the only realistic option at the time.