How Daniel Jones’ benching impacts Giants QB contract, 2025 status

Daniel Jones’ tenure as the New York Giants’ starting quarterback is coming to an end.

The Giants are making a change at quarterback following their Week 11 bye, according to reports. Jones will move to the bench while Tommy DeVito will be elevated from the team’s third-string quarterback role to the starting position.

Drew Lock, who has been the Giants’ backup quarterback all season, will retain that role following DeVito’s promotion.

Jones’ benching is no surprise. He did not perform well during the 2024 NFL season, leading the Giants to just a 2-8 record in 10 weeks and posting a passer rating of 79.4, good for the fourth-worst rating in the league.

Beyond that, benching Jones protects the Giants from a sticky situation that could have arisen if they had continued to play him. The veteran quarterback has an injury guarantee in his contract that would have made his release in 2025 more difficult if he had been injured.

Here’s what you need to know about Jones’ contract and the role he played on his bench.

Daniel Jones contract details

Jones is in the second year of a four-year, $160 million extension he signed with the Giants in 2023, after his rookie contract expired. Below are the full details of the contract, according to Spotrac.com:

Term: 4 years
Total value: $160 million
Average Annual Value (AAV): 40 million dollars
Money guaranteed: $81 million

Jones’ extension was certainly lucrative, but the Giants protected themselves slightly by guaranteeing only half of it. This gives them the option to terminate the contract during the 2025 NFL offseason while absorbing a dead cap hit of just over $22.2 million.

That said, there was a potential problem with this plan: A significant portion of Jones’ 2025 salary would be guaranteed if he were sidelined with a long-term injury.

Daniel Jones Injury Guarantee

Jones had a $23 million injury guarantee written into his contract for the 2025 NFL season. That meant if he suffered a significant injury, the Giants would have to guarantee $23 million of his $30 million base salary for the campaign.

Without the injury guarantee, none of Jones’ $30 million salary would be guaranteed until the fifth day of the new NFL league year in March. This would give the Giants enough time to release Jones before owing him more money.

If Jones had lived up to the expectations set by his lucrative extensions, the Giants wouldn’t have worried much about those guarantees. They would happily pay them to keep the quarterback on the team.

But Jones was not up to the task. As such, New York will likely look to terminate his contract following the 2024 NFL season. This means the team won’t want its injury guarantee to trigger, as that would make Jones’ contract more of an albatross than it already is.

That may be the main reason the Giants benched Jones, despite general manager Joe Schoen’s insistence that the pick would be a “football decision” based on on-field performance. Sitting Jones guarantees he won’t be hurt, so New York can part ways with him without risking absorbing an additional $23 million in collateral damage.

If you’re looking for a recent comparison to this situation, the Denver Broncos took this approach with Russell Wilson before the end of the 2023 NFL season to avoid guaranteeing $37 million of his salary for 2024. They were a lot closer to the competition than the Giants, so it’s no surprise to see New York take the same approach with Jones.

Daniel Jones ceiling reached, dead ceiling reached for 2025

Jones is projected to have a cap hit of just over $41.6 million in 2025, according to Spotrac.com. Releasing him would result in a dead charge of about $22.2 million for the Giants, saving them about $19.4 million in overall cap space.

New York would also receive a cash windfall from the move, as the Giants would no longer pay Jones the $30 million they would otherwise owe him in salary. This could prove just as valuable during an offseason where the Giants will be looking for a long-term quarterback to replace Jones.