Daniel Jones will be the best rookie quarterback this year

Daniel Jones takes over the reins in New York to try and resuscitate a struggling offense.

An era is finally coming to an end. After 15 years as the quarterback of the New York Giants, Eli Manning will officially hand the reigns to his heir apparent. Daniel Jones, the 6th overall pick in the NFL Draft out of Duke University, will be tasked with reviving a lackluster offense and reigniting the interest of a beaten-down fan base.

The decision came after a putrid start to the season for Manning and the Giants offense. After two games, the Giants sit at 27th in the league in scoring offense and were largely non-competitive against the Cowboys and Bills.

Jones dazzled in the preseason, completing 29 of his 34 passes (85.5% completion percentage) for two touchdowns and no interceptions. He completed three of four passes against the Cowboys in Week 1.

Jones displayed the arm strength and willingness to push the ball down the field that the Giants just don’t have with Manning under center

Now, lighting it up in the preseason and winning regular season football games are a completely different story, but the Giants are right to take this leap now. Eli wasn’t leading them to a playoff berth and the team has needed to go into a full-blown rebuild for quite some time. Why not hand the starting job to the player you spent the 6th overall pick on?

Jones has a serious challenge ahead of him. New York has a complete lack of weapons outside of star running Saquon Barkley. Superstar wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. was traded to the Cleveland Browns in the offseason, Sterling Shepard missed last week’s game with a concussion, and Golden Tate is suspended until Week 5.

The leading receiver for New York through two weeks has been tight end Evan Engram (17 catches, 164 yards). Expect this to continue as Jones threw nearly have of his touchdown passes to tight ends during his senior year at Duke.

Another good reason to make this switch now is the Giants’ upcoming schedule. New York will play Tampa Bay and Washington in the coming weeks, allowing Jones to find his footing before facing Minnesota and New England.

When all is said and done, we could be talking about Jones being the best rookie quarterback after this season. Arizona’s Kyler Murray is the only other rookie starting, and he has already been sacked eight times and is completing only 57.4 percent of his passes. His QBR in the opening game against the Lions was 34.6 and he has continued to struggle with his accuracy.

Jones has the frame and skillset to surpass Murray as the best rookie quarterback this season. Murray’s upside is admittedly higher, but a case could be made for Jones being a franchise quarterback in New York for years to come.

No matter what happens, this is a win for New York Giants fans and NFL viewers. The Giants will be relevant on Sundays and their game against the Buccaneers this week becomes an interesting football match-up.

The Eli Manning era in New York is over. Now comes the fun part.