The Giants took some people by surprise when they drafted quarterback Daniel Jones with the sixth overall pick last week, but the surprise was about where in the draft that they took him rather than that they were interested in him at all.
Jones and the Giants had been linked throughout the pre-draft process and part of that had to do with Duke head coach David Cutcliffe. Cutcliffe was the head coach at Ole Miss when Eli Manning was in school and Jones met the longtime Giants quarterback in 2016 when he went to Duke for offseason workouts with Cutcliffe.
Comparisons were drawn between the two quarterbacks because of that connection and Jones will now get to continue molding his game alongside Manning.
“I think it’s a tremendous opportunity for a young guy to go into a place where there’s a future Hall of Famer who’s done it for a really long time at a really high level and definitely knows what it takes,” Jones said on SiriusXM NFL Radio, via the team’s website. “So that to me is a big advantage in where I am right now. So I’m looking forward to it, just being teammates with him, being able to learn from him in the building every day. I think that’s a special opportunity.”
How long Jones will be the student remains an open question and it will likely be answered by how well the team fares in the standings while Jones is observing the veteran at work. If their spot isn’t much improved from the last two years, it may not be all that long before Jones gets to show off what he’s learned.
