Former New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones left the Minnesota Vikings as a free agent earlier in March to signal with the Indianapolis Colts so he can compete with 2023 first-round draft decide Anthony Richardson for the Indianapolis beginning job later this summer time.
Nonetheless, the truth that the Vikings may consider signing Aaron Rodgers to a short-term contract suggests Jones might’ve returned to Minnesota to compete with 2024 first-round draft selection J.J. McCarthy after McCarthy spent this previous season recovering from a full meniscus repair.
For an article revealed on Monday, NFL insider Albert Breer of Sports activities Illustrated addressed why Jones made the transfer to the Colts after he ended the 2024 marketing campaign as a backup with Minnesota.
“Jones, I’m informed, picked what he noticed as the higher likelihood to win and hold a beginning job,” Breer wrote. “If he went again to Minnesota and J.J. McCarthy turned the nook within the coming weeks and maintained the momentum into the spring, on condition that the Vikings simply took him tenth within the 2024 draft, it’d have been laborious for Jones to dislodge him from the lineup. Anthony Richardson, conversely, is on the finish somewhat than the beginning of his window to make the crew that drafted him his personal.”
Richardson has up to now essentially missed a whole season’s price of video games resulting from harm setbacks, was benched for a pair of contests this previous fall after he tapped out of a recreation as a result of he was “tired” and did not play properly sufficient over his first 15 career starts to spend this offseason cemented atop the Colts’ depth chart.
Per Pro Football Reference, he ended the 2024 marketing campaign ranked final within the NFL amongst certified gamers with a 47.7 % completion proportion and a 61.6 passer ranking.
In fact, Jones wasn’t a lot better (if in any respect) as he went 2-8 earlier than the Giants benched after which launched him this previous November. Breer famous that “some groups, together with the” Vikings, “noticed the Giants somewhat than Jones, himself, as the issue over the previous two years” as he fell out of favor with New York normal supervisor Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll.
Some reporters have questioned if Colts head coach Shane Steichen will give Jones a reliable likelihood to unseat Richardson from the opening day of springtime exercises by the preseason.
“If Jones has an awesome spring and summer time,” Breer added, “and Richardson is simply OK, I don’t assume there’ll be any concern on Shane Steichen’s half to go full steam forward with the ex-Big and Viking—and provides him the leeway McCarthy would in all probability get in Minnesota.”
Briefly, it appears Jones actually is confident he’ll enter Labor Day weekend as Indianapolis’ QB1.
