Is Daniel Jones's 2025 success sustainable? A deep dive into the numbers.

[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by sherck

Good numbers. Good support to your argument. I agree that he seems to play in SS's offense better than he did anywhere else.....

.....when he was available.

You hit the nail on the head. While he may drive an efficient and effective offense when on the field, he cannot be counted on to be on the field enough to make the difference.

Games played each season since 2018:

13 / 14 / 11 / 16 / 6 / 10 / 13

The closest he got to a full slate was 16 of 17 games 2022 and 14 of 16 games in 2020.

While those seasons are fine with availability (Not everyone can be Peyton Manning), the other seasons are not

3 missed games
2 missed games
5 missed games
1 missed game
11 missed games
7 missed games
4 missed games

You cannot gamble your franchise on a QB who misses that many games at the most critical position on the team.

To use the QBs you mentioned in your "success" rate discussion:

33 missed games since 2019 = Daniel Jones
19 missed games since 2019 = Matthew Stafford
04 missed games since 2019 = Drake Maye (only 2 seasons)
27 missed games since 2019 = Sam Darnold

Easy to say that DJ has "only" missed six more games than Darnold but DJ misses some every year. Darnold had three seasons in that time frame that he missed zero games. DJ has never done that.

So, sure, like Bob Sanders, when DJ is on the field, I hope he is a difference maker. But history has shown that he will not be on the field enough for us to win deep into the playoffs and thus he is the wrong QB for the Colts.

Unfortunately, when you're in a situation like the Colts are in where they're not one of the 5-10 teams that has a true franchise QB, you have to gamble on something like this and hope it works out. I also wish that I had more than zero confidence in the strength and conditioning team to come up with a plan to keep him available throughout the season, but the strength and conditioning team in this organization seems to have a negative effect if any on the number of player games missed.