Daniel Jones: Points Don’t Lie

Bobby Koch Posted On February 24, 2020

Daniel Jones’ rookie season is viewed much the same way as the Super Bowl halftime show was. Some look at the moves he made to get fantasy points and get immediately excited. Others look at his decision making and begin to worry about what his moves are teaching their kids.

Even among Dynasty League Football’s own quarterback rankings, Jones runs the gamut from being ranked as the seventeenth best dynasty quarterback all the way up to the ninth. Some of that is likely due to his fumbles and interceptions. However, some of it is also likely due to perceptions of Jones when he was selected in the first round of the NFL draft. Many believed it to be a reach and are holding onto those feelings.

We can’t blame them. They never knew he could play like this. You know his numbers don’t lie so let’s take a closer look at them.

In his rookie season, Jones attempted 459 passes that resulted in 61.9% completion rate, 3027 passing yards, 24 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. He also added 45 rushing attempts, 279 rushing yards, and two rushing touchdowns showing he can make plays with legs. Dating back to 2000, here is a complete list of quarterbacks who passed for 3,000 yards or more as rookies:

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That’s a lot of fantasy-relevant quarterbacks. Ok, it also includes some questionable ones such as Brandon Weeden, and Geno Smith. If you’re not impressed by that maybe you’ll be impressed by this stat courtesy of Zach Wilkens:

Kyler Murray and Daniel Jones' 300 yard games today give them each 5 on the season. Those are the 2nd most ever by a rookie, 1 behind Andrew Luck.

Note: with only 12 starts for Jones, he has a higher % of 300 yard games than any other rookie with 3+ 300 yard games.

— Zach Wilkens (@LopsidedTrades) December 30, 2019

If you want to confirm for yourself, you can find the information Zach is talking about here courtesy of pro-football-reference. You could reasonably argue that Jones had to throw a ton because the Giants’ defense was worse than even the Baby Mr. Peanut commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. Still, to have the highest percentage of 300-yard passing games speaks volumes to Jones upside.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though. Jones had a good amount of off throws this year. It was enough to make fantasy owners and Giants fans swear. An interception in every start isn’t great. Add in 18 fumbles and it’s enough to make some people hate.

Jones has to work on his pocket awareness and decision making. No one is arguing that. These are things that can be improved with experience though. They certainly won’t cost him his job in 2020, or hurt his fantasy points too greatly as long as he continues performing well in other areas.

Speaking of fantasy, let’s get to it. Between weeks one and sixteen, Jones finished as the QB20 on the season and thirteen in points-per-game. This is greatly suppressing his value. When he became the starter in week three until the end of the fantasy season, Jones was the QB12 in total points and eighth on a points-per-game basis.

To give you a better idea of just how good that was, Kyler Murray is currently being treated the QB6 in DLF staff ranks while Jones is the QB13. The difference in points-per-game between them during the span after Jones became a starter was that Jones had 2.56 more points-per-game than Murray.

That doesn’t include some good games by Murray early in the season though. So I manually calculated the fantasy points-per-game where each attempted at least 10 passes. The result was that Jones outscored Murray 23.38 points-per-game to 21.08. Either way, these two should be closer in our ranks than they currently are.

I recently made a bet with Dan Williams on of the Goat District podcast that Jones would be within 1 point-per-game or better of Murray in the 2020 season. The loser has to wear jorts and post a picture to Fantasy Twitter. Considering I don’t fancy myself as being Tobias Funke from Arrested Development, that should show just how confident I am in this outcome.

Why? Well, as good as Jones’ rookie season was, it’s not like everything went perfectly. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Giants offensive player that played the full sixteen games. The combination of Sterling Shepard, Saquon Barkley, Golden Tate, and Evan Engram all missed games for various reasons. Interestingly according to the splits, Jones was actually better without Shepard or Engram in the game. However, here are what the splits look like with Barkley and Tate courtesy of Rotoviz:

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This isn’t to say I don’t have some concerns about Jones’ outlook. There is an entirely new coaching staff with the Giants, which includes Jason Garrett as offensive coordinator. The good news is that Dak Prescott had some nice fantasy seasons working with Garrett. The bad news is that if you trust Dez Bryant at all, then Garrett’s offensive schemes are incredibly stale.

Additionally, we’ve seen rookies burst onto the scene only to end up not great after. Weeden and Geno Smith are two examples. Baker Mayfield is a more recent example. There’s a risk with taking a chance on a young quarterback, but the reward is sweet: if they keep it up they zoom towards the top of first-round startup value in superflex formats.

Speaking of superflex, I was recently asked where I would value Jones in rookie picks in a superflex draft. I say I’d gladly trade the 1.04 for him if I needed a quarterback. I know that the hype for 2020 picks surpasses even Minshew Mania, love of Ryan Fitzpatrick’s beard, and all things good in this world. That said if I’m not getting Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, or D’Andre Swift, I’m going to make that move.

It’s not that easy to find young talented fantasy quarterbacks with job security thanks to their rookie contracts.

Ultimately, don’t be fooled by the overall point total from Jones’ rookie season. He was deceptively good for fantasy purposes. If I was in a start-up today, I’d pass on taking Murray at his mid-second ADP and instead take Jones in the fourth. Additionally, I’d easily take Jones over Aaron Rodgers at this point in their careers.

I’m sure much like the halftime show, some of my takes here will be controversial. I’m always happy to discuss them with you on Twitter.