Giants should fire Dave Gettleman for drafting Daniel Jones at No. 6

Fans of the New York Giants deserve better than Dave Gettleman. Drafting Daniel Jones at No. 6 should cost the General Manager his job. 

When Dave Gettleman drafted Saquon Barkley with the No. 2 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft the selection was universally panned for being out of touch with the modern NFL. Gettleman made a much more grievous error in this year’s draft. Selecting Duke quarterback Daniel Jones at No. 6 should be the last choice he’s permitted to make for the franchise.

It’s an indefensible selection. There are serious concerns about whether or not Jones has the talent to grow into a starting quarterback in the NFL. He was a good, but certainly not great quarterback for David Cutcliffe in college. Questions about his lack of arm strength and production for the Blue Devils should have pushed him down the Giants draft board.

Instead, Gettleman chose to use his most premium asset to bring him to New York. Ostensibly, the plan will be for Jones to sit on the sidelines this season to learn under Eli Manning. There’s a solid argument to be made that a high first round pick shouldn’t be invested in a player who is going to take a redshirt year.

There’s an even better argument to be made that Jones shouldn’t have been selected anywhere near the top of the first round. As the draft approached, it was clear the Giants had Jones higher on their board than every other NFL franchise. In other words, they didn’t face any meaningful competition to draft him at No. 6.

Gettleman will inevitably defend this selection by claiming that getting the player the Giants considered to be the best quarterback in the draft with the No. 6 pick is a coup. The flaw in that logic is that no other team was going to take Jones nearly that high. It’s very likely that New York could have waited until their second first round pick (No. 17) to grab Jones.

Instead, they passed on adding a premium prospect to select a signal caller that no one else in the NFL really appeared to be that interested in. That’s a misappropriation of resources that needs to lead to Gettleman’s dismissal. The decision to draft Jones at No. 6, combined with taking Barkley at No. 2 last season shows that the NFL game has passed Gettleman by. The longer the Giants leave him in charge of their personnel decisions the further behind the rest of the league they’re going to fall.