Yeah, he noticed.
Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz was asked this week what he sees out of Daniel Jones in his second year as the Giants’ quarterback, and if anything has changed with Jones now that he does not have Saquon Barkley to hand the ball off to.
“Well, he is their leading rusher,’’ Schwartz said of Jones.
And so he is — which is not necessarily good news for the Giants.
Jones has run the ball 27 times for 204 yards. Devonta Freeman (51-164) is second on the Giants’ rushing list. Jones is fourth among NFL quarterbacks in rushing — behind just Kyler Murray (370 yards), Lamar Jackson (346) and Cam Newton (255). Jones’ yards per carry of 7.6 is higher than all three quarterbacks ahead of him in the rushing race.
“They ran a little bit last year,’’ Schwartz said. “They ran some zone-read type stuff with him. He can surprise you with his mobility. We can’t be surprised about that, because he does have good mobility and he’s run for some first downs. He’s probably not the first guy you think of when you think about mobile quarterbacks, but he’s run the zone read and a couple different layers of it really well, and he has not been afraid to put his head down and get extra yards.’’
Jones is the only quarterback to lead the Giants in rushing through six games in the Super Bowl era, which began with the 1966 season.
Daniel JonesCharles Wenzelberg/New York PostThree players are out for the Giants: WR C.J. Board (concussion), DB Adrian Colbert (shoulder) and LB Tae Crowder (hamstring, now on IR). DB Darnay Holmes (neck) is questionable.
WR Sterling Shepard (turf toe) is not listed, as he is still on injured reserve. The Giants have until 4 p.m. Thursday to activate him, which they likely will do, though he is not expected to be ready to play just yet.
The Eagles are wounded. At one point in last week’s 30-28 loss to the Ravens, quarterback Carson Wentz and center Jason Kelce were the only two players on the field for Philadelphia who had been projected as starters going into the season. Out for this game are six starters or key contributors: T Jack Driscoll, TE Zach Ertz, DT Malik Jackson, WR Alshon Jeffery, RB Miles Sanders and S K’Von Wallace.
Doug Pederson is 4-0 on Thursday nights as head coach of the Eagles.
“Honestly, I make light of it, but my wife tells me all the time that you can put a game plan together in a day and go win a game on Thursday night, why can’t you do that for a Sunday game, right?’’ Pederson said. “But I do think that there’s some validity, so to speak, to keeping it simple. To going back to some of your training camp-type plays. Utilizing all your personnel. And a lot of it, too, falls on the players. It’s more of a narrow focus, a laser focus for a couple of days.’’


