NFC East

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll said he has "full confidence" in Daniel Jones despite the quarterback's continued struggles during training camp.

Daboll acknowledged Tyrod Taylor will start getting some first-team work but said Tuesday that it was no reflection of his belief in Jones. Taylor got extended work in the Giants' preseason opener, throwing for 129 yards and a touchdown after replacing Jones when the starters exited the game.

Jones, heading into his fourth NFL season, completed six of his 10 passes for 69 yards but took significant criticism on social media for a seeming lack of progress in his decision-making. Those criticisms come amid several reports from training camp indicating the Giants offense has not been flowing as Daboll hoped.

Daboll joined the Giants this offseason after previously spending four seasons as the Buffalo Bills' offensive coordinator. The Giants front office hoped Daboll's brilliance in developing Josh Allen would carry over to Jones, who has not looked like an NFL starter through his first three seasons.

While it will be impossible to make a judgment before the regular season begins, it appears Daboll is not having success. Jones is on his third head coach in four seasons, with Daboll's two predecessors losing their jobs in part because of the quarterback's lack of progress.

The Duke product is 12-25 over his first 37 career starts, throwing for 8,398 yards and 45 touchdowns against 29 interceptions. He's thrown just 21 touchdowns over his last two seasons after tossing 24 as a rookie.

Taylor is a journeyman on his sixth NFL team and would do little more than act as a stopgap in the Giants' search for a franchise quarterback. He did not look strong in six starts with the Houston Texans last season and was eventually replaced by rookie Davis Mills.

That said, Taylor does have a 26-25-1 record as a starter and at least has a history of avoiding major mistakes through the air. Daboll has no ties to Jones and will almost certainly look to replace him next offseason, so it would not be a surprise if Taylor winds up slotting into the starting job if Jones struggles out of the gate.

Wide receiver Antonio Brown expressed interest in signing with the Dallas Cowboys ahead of the 2022 NFL season.

"Tell Jerry Jones to call me," Brown told TMZ Sports in an interview released Saturday.

The request comes a couple of days after Brown posted a bizarre statement on social media saying his only regret was being unable to watch himself play football:

Brown was last seen on an NFL field during Week 17 of last season, when he ripped off his Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey and shoulder pads before making a dramatic exit from MetLife Stadium.

The seven-time Pro Bowl selection has since shifted focus to his music career, but it sounds like he's open to a return to football if one presents itself.

Brown remained productive when healthy for the Bucs last season, tallying 42 catches for 545 yards and four touchdowns in seven games. He topped 1,200 receiving yards in six straight seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers beginning in 2013.

There were no indications any teams showed interest in him throughout the offseason.

Dallas is facing questions about its receiving depth amid injuries to Michael Gallup and James Washington, which hasn't left any proven options behind top target CeeDee Lamb.

From a purely football perspective, Brown could probably provide a boost to the group of playmakers around quarterback Dak Prescott, especially if he's back to full strength after dealing with an ankle injury in 2021.

That said, he carries a lot of baggage from the past handful of years, which included stops with the Steelers, Bucs, Oakland Raiders and New England Patriots. It's unclear whether the Cowboys, or any other NFL team, are willing to take a chance on him as a result.

Dallas may make an effort to upgrade its pass-catching group before the regular season gets underway in September, but it's unlikely Brown will be the solution.

The always-calm and rational Philadelphia fanbase had some thoughts about the Eagles' impressive start to the preseason Friday night.

Jalen Hurts led a seven-play, 80-yard touchdown drive that took just under four minutes against the New York Jets.

Perhaps the most encouraging part of the drive was all 80 yards were racked up by Hurts through the air. The third-year quarterback completed all six of his attempts, including a 28-yard strike to Quez Watkins on his first pass.

Hurts finished his only drive of the game with a 22-yard touchdown pass to Dallas Goedert.

Hurts did try to use his legs when he scrambled for what would have been a 12-yard touchdown run. The play was called back because of a holding penalty by Jordan Mailata.

It didn't end up being a big deal, as Hurts found Goedert for a score on the next play.

The Jets defense did aid in keeping the drive alive. Hurts was sacked out of bounds on a 3rd-and-5 play, but Quinnen Williams hit the Eagles quarterback late and was flagged for unnecessary roughness.

The Eagles offense did all of that without A.J. Brown even being targeted on the drive. The 25-year-old did suit up for his first game with Philadelphia after being acquired in a draft-day trade with the Tennessee Titans.

The questions about Hurts entering this season revolved almost entirely around his ability as a passer.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers engineered a game plan in the NFC Wild Card round in which they dared Hurts to beat them through the air. He finished just 23-of-43 for 258 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions in a 31-15 loss.

Hurts led all quarterbacks with 782 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground last season.

One of the reasons the Eagles added Brown was to make life easier for Hurts as a passer.

Based on the very brief, early returns from one preseason series, Hurts may not even need Brown to show that he's evolved as a thrower. It will certainly be nice to have the former Pro Bowler on the outside as they continue to build a rapport heading into the regular season.

Washington Commanders president Jason Wright ripped into reporter Scott Abraham on Friday, calling him a "pompous, unprofessional mess" for his line of questioning to quarterback Carson Wentz in a recent interview.

Abraham pulled no punches in the interview, questioning Wentz on his unceremonious exits from Indianapolis and Philadelphia and discussing the quarterback's inconsistent accuracy in camp.

"Real talk here, Carson: It's been well-documented, Philly didn't want you, Indy didn't want you. Do you think this is your last chance to prove you can be a starting quarterback in the NFL?" Abraham asked.

Wright seemed to have a particular issue with the way Abraham phrased the questions, saying it was disrespectful in a reply to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk:

Whether Abraham was being disrespectful is ultimately a subjective opinion. Wentz seemed a little taken aback by the straightforward nature of the questioning but answered without incident.

However, Abraham's line of questioning is unquestionably accurate. The Philadelphia Eagles paid the largest dead cap hit in NFL history ($33.8 million) to trade Wentz in 2021. The Colts, who traded a 2021 third-round pick and 2022 first-round pick for Wentz, dumped him off almost a year to the day later for minimal return.

More tellingly, Indianapolis replaced Wentz with Matt Ryan, a quarterback who is eight years older and who performed worse than Wentz in every statistical category last season. It's not often you have a team owner publicly calling the decision to acquire a player a "mistake." Nor is it very often when a coach is apologizing to said owner for vouching for a quarterback.

Wentz is a player with a reputation for not always being the easiest person to get along with. He's also playing for his third organization in as many seasons and is likely being given his last opportunity to serve as an unquestioned starter.

There is plenty of reason for optimism in Washington. Wentz, while wholly unspectacular, put up solid numbers last season. He threw for 3,563 yards and 27 touchdowns against seven interceptions. ESPN's QBR metric gave him a 54.7 overall grade, which was ninth among qualifying quarterbacks, and Pro Football Focus also graded him out positively.

It's possible the Commanders bought low on a distressed asset that will help stabilize the quarterback position.

That said, it's also not a good look for a team president to publicly rebuke a reporter and threaten to limit access over a line of questioning he disagreed with. Florio pointing out that these threats could limit reporters' willingness to ask tough questions is fair. That's particularly concerning in Washington, given the organization's most recent public headlines have involved changing an insensitive team name after decades of public pressure, a sexual misconduct workplace scandal, and allegations of financial impropriety by team owner Dan Snyder.

When the New York Giants offensive line heard this could be a make-or-break season for Daniel Jones, it apparently took those comments literally.

Jones played well enough in limited work Thursday night against the New England Patriots, going 6-of-10 for 69 yards.

Based on the state of his pass-blocking, though, the fourth-year quarterback might be fortunate to make it to Week 8.

Jones was culpable to some extent, though, since he still seems to struggle with understanding how quickly he needs to make reads in the pocket.

And while preseason games mean little in the grand scheme of things, nothing from Thursday night will change anybody's opinion of the 25-year-old.

The writing was on the wall when the Giants declined Jones' fifth-year option for 2023. He's almost assuredly not the long-term solution under center, and it won't be surprising if Tyrod Taylor replaces him at some point in the season ahead.

During the Washington Commanders' training camp this summer, a number of videos have gone public showing new quarterback Carson Wentz appearing to struggle with his accuracy.

During an interview with Scott Abraham of 7News DC, Wentz addressed those missed throws:

I'm my biggest critic, so I come back after practice and I kick myself over one, two three, four, five plays. But at the same time, there's usually things we can learn from it. There's usually like, 'OK here's what I was seeing, this is what I was feeling,' and then go talk to the receiver. 'Hey Terry [McLaurin], what were you feeling on that one?' Maybe shutting it down in that zone, or ripping through that zone. Different things that opens up conversations.

So I'm definitely bummed when I miss them, but at the same time, let's use them as learning opportunities because it is a lot of our first times together. There's been OTAs, but a lot of it is new and more or less 'live reps' against our defense. Just seeing things different, so trying to be as clean as I can be. Hasn't been perfect by any means and I can continue to get better and I will. But at the same time, I try not to beat myself up over it and say, 'Hey, how can we learn from it so it doesn't happen the next time, but especially on Sundays this year.'

Washington head coach Ron Rivera has defended his quarterback this week, telling reporters he believes the accuracy concerns are overblown.

"It's a lot better than you give him credit for, just because of the way things happen in practice," he said. "There's a lot of little nuances that we see that we look at that we get to review. Yeah, there's some inaccuracy. But it's nothing that we are overly concerned [about]."

Rivera also said he wasn't worried about anything that happened between Wentz and his two former organizations, the Philadelphia Eagles and Indianapolis Colts, who each gave up on the veteran quarterback.

"The narratives are all unfair," he said. "I mean, obviously he left each place for their reasons. OK, great—that's their reasons. He's here for our reason. He's here because we want him here. He's here because we see what he can do, we see what he's done. And based on what we do, we see there's an opportunity. And that's why he's here."

"And we have a lot of confidence in what we've seen so far," he continued. "The guys have all assimilated to him. They've rallied around him. And that's a huge plus because, again, based on what we went through for the last couple of years—and probably before I got here—trying to find the quarterback."

But despite what Wentz and Rivera say, it's hard to note that some of the quarterback's throws in camp and decisions have been downright poor:

Granted, what happens in the games is far more important than what occurs on the practice field, as players get back into the swing of things. But accuracy has been an issue for Wentz, as evidenced by his 62.6 career completion percentage and 57 interceptions in 85 career starts, including an NFL-worst 15 in the 2020 season.

That and the tendency to hold onto the ball too long have always been knocks against Wentz. And dating back to the 2018 season, his teams have gone just 26-29-1 in his starts.

Washington will be hoping to rediscover the version of Wentz that looked like an MVP candidate in 2017 (33 touchdowns, seven interceptions in 13 games) before he tore his ACL. That player looked like a burgeoning superstar. In the years that followed, Wentz showed flashes of that level of play but struggled to consistently perform.

The Wentz that shows up for the Commanders in 2022 will ultimately determine the fate of their season.

The last two offseasons have seen Carson Wentz make unceremonious exits from Indianapolis and Philadelphia, leading to a reputation that the quarterback is difficult to work with.

Washington Commanders coach Ron Rivera does not seem to have had the same experience.

"The narratives are all unfair," Rivera said Wednesday on SiriusXM. "I mean, obviously he left each place for their reasons. OK, great—that’s their reasons. He’s here for our reason. He’s here because we want him here. He’s here because we see what he can do, we see what he’s done. And based on what we do, we see there’s an opportunity. And that’s why he’s here.

"And we have a lot of confidence in what we’ve seen so far. The guys have all assimilated to him. They’ve rallied around him. And that’s a huge plus because, again, based on what we went through for the last couple of years—and probably before I got here—trying to find the quarterback."

While Rivera seems to have a solid relationship with Wentz, it's hard to categorize his reputation as "unfair." The Eagles took a $33.8 million dead-cap hit to trade Wentz last offseason, and the Colts dumped him off a year later in a deal that was a washing of their hands of the Wentz experience.

“It's just, for us, it was just it was something that we had to move away from as a franchise — it was very obvious,” Colts owner Jim Irsay told Zak Keefer of The Athletic.

That's not exactly what an owner typically says about a player who had a great reputation around the locker room. Keefer also reported Colts coach Frank Reich apologized to Irsay for vouching for Wentz when Indianapolis made the trade last March.

Wentz threw for 3,563 yards and 27 touchdowns against seven interceptions last season, numbers that were more than strong enough to bring him back if there weren't other issues. While it's clear he's not an elite NFL starter, Wentz finished ninth in the NFL in QBR last season and outperformed Matt Ryan, his replacement in Indianapolis, by every objective measure.

It's possible Rivera is getting the best possible version of Wentz and this latest change of scenery will work out swimmingly. That said, Wentz's falling out in his first two NFL stops is likely playing a factor in his desire to make this situation work.

A video of Philadelphia Eagles rookie defensive tackle Jordan Davis went viral over the weekend, showing him driving fellow rookie and center Cam Jurgens about 10 yards off the ball.

On Wednesday, Davis told reporters he wished that play hadn't received so much attention.

"I hate it, honestly. It's very one-sided," he said. "You see one rep, but you don't see Cam ... getting me in the other reps. I always say looks can be deceiving. One rep goes viral—whatever, whoop de woo. Cam was holding his own."

It was a humble response, though it would have been a major red flag had Davis started gloating about the video and clowning his own teammate in front of reporters. Still, it was the sort of thoughtful answer that earned him praise afterward:

There are a lot of expectations surrounding Davis, who was drafted in the first round to add more depth at defensive tackle behind Fletcher Cox and Javon Hargrave and eventually take over as a key starter himself.

So far, he appears to be impressing on and off the field.