I am a day late but yesterday was 62 days to the Hall of Fame Game on Aug 6th. That can be considered the unofficial start of the NFL season. In reference to the number 62 I will use Giants quarterback Daniel Jones‘ 2019 rushing yards per attempt of 6.2 yards. It is a little stretch of the number divided by ten.
In 2019 Jones rushed for 279 yards at an average of 6.2 yards per attempt. That average was third most among quarterbacks that rushed for over 100 yards. It was fourth among quarterbacks that rushed for an average 20+ yards per game. As a rookie it was tenth all time among rookie quarterbacks that had 1000+ passing yards, 200+ rushing yards and 20+ rushing yards per game.
Jones adds a rushing weapon to his game that we did not see with Eli Manning. In his career Eli never rushed for over 80 yards in a season and his average yards per attempt was 1.8 yards. However in an attempt to cut back on the number of fumbles we may see less of a running game from Daniel Jones. This is a quote of his former college coach David Cutcliffe. He has been working with Jones this offseason to cut back on his fumbles.
“He was too fearless as a runner here. I said, “In a league. it’s simple. Those guys hit you – they’re six or seven years older, they’re stronger than anything that’s ever hit you before. Quit running the ball like a back. Get on the ground. Run like a quarterback. Unless it’s to win the Super Bowl, quit taking on tacklers….Don’t take those hits. The ball is coming out. “
This offseason Daniel Jones has added nine pounds to his frame for the purpose of cutting back on fumbles with a stronger grip. That would probably also help in the run attempts. However whether that happens remains to be seen. It sounds like we may see less of Daniel Jones scrambling and instead staying more in the pocket.
