Before Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline, reports may emerge that the Vikings or another team is considering a trade for Daniel Jones. Any general manager looking for a dependable quarterback should ask a basic question first: why Jones?
Jones is now with the Indianapolis Colts, whose season has slipped badly. The team has been struggling for weeks, and its hopes have faded along with its record.
Sunday’s 27–23 loss to the Dallas Cowboys offered another reason to be wary. Jones threw an interception on Indianapolis’ final offensive play, ending the team’s chance to win. On the drive, he had also thrown an incompletion, taken an intentional-grounding penalty, and thrown another incompletion.
The Colts got the ball with 1:08 left and needed a touchdown. But Jones has rarely been the sort of quarterback who regularly engineers dramatic comeback wins. His time in Indianapolis, and earlier with the New York Giants, has brought more disappointment than rescue acts.
“Didn’t finish the way we want to finish,” Colts coach Shane Steichen said afterward.
Steichen and the Colts committed to Jones as their starter last season, before an injury derailed the year. They stuck with him again this season, and despite staying healthy, he has been part of a team that has fallen to 2–7. Steichen could pay for that decision with his job, while the next coach and general manager will have to decide what to do with Jones.
That decision may come before the Colts’ season is over. The Vikings have reportedly contacted Indianapolis about acquiring him ahead of Tuesday’s 4 p.m. deadline.
The interest is striking. Minnesota appears confident it can help develop quarterbacks, but it has also made some questionable choices at the position. The idea that Jones would fix another team’s quarterback problems seems to overlook his record of inconsistency.
He has thrown an interception in four straight games and has had only one interception-free game this season. To his credit, Jones has generally owned his mistakes and acknowledged that the offense needs to improve.
Still, on Sunday he pointed to the uncertainty around the Colts as a possible reason the team hasn’t performed as expected. “There’s been so much stuff going on and distractions and different things, and we’ve got to do a better job handling it as a team, collectively executing together, as a group,” he said.
That explanation is hard to separate from the team’s poor play. The Colts began looking ahead to next season and weighing changes because they haven’t been winning. Better performances from Jones and more victories might have left the team with fewer distractions to manage.
Jones said the team needs to execute better together. He may soon get the chance to do that somewhere else, with a team that believes he can improve its situation—much as Indianapolis did before this season began.
