INDIANAPOLIS — The calls got everybody’s attention.
Daniel Jones stepped to the line of scrimmage a couple of times in Wednesday’s practice, took one look at the scout team defense and realized the Colts offense might be in a tough spot if he ran the play he’d just called in the huddle.
There was no hesitation.
Jones changed the play immediately.
“He made some checks at the line of scrimmage in practice yesterday, and I was like, ‘As long as you’re good with that, I’m good with that,’” Colts center Tanor Bortolini said. “It’s cool to have a quarterback that really understands what he’s doing, and it excites me that he takes pride in that. That’s a really big part of our offense.”
A big part of almost every NFL offense, and the crux of how Jones was able to wrest the starting job away from incumbent starter Anthony Richardson in training camp this season.
How Daniel Jones approaches quarterbacking
Unlike college football, where the game has simplified over the past decade-plus in an effort to level the playing field between teams, NFL football is a game of high-stakes speed chess between the offense and defense, a series of attacks and counters aimed at exposing an opponent’s weaknesses.
Offensive coaching staffs build their game plans by identifying weaknesses in every formation, personnel grouping and coverage a defense likes to play, and the play caller spends the game hunting for opportunities to exploit those weaknesses.
“Obviously you’ve got to see the defense, the shell coverage, how they’re rotating, all those different things,” Indianapolis head coach Shane Steichen said. “Seeing the rotation – middle field closed, middle field open, seeing how the defense is playing it, and then you go from there. You make your throws off this. Obviously, you have your reads, but you got to have a little feel to it too on how guys are playing, whether playing tight-coverage man or spot-drop zone, all those different things.”
When the play called into the quarterback’s helmet is the right one for the defense, the quarterback’s job is relatively easy.
But no play caller can read a defensive coordinator’s mind before every call.
In those situations, it’s up to the quarterback to come up with the right answer.
“You’ll get tricked every once in a while, that’s part of football,” Steichen said. “When the coverage picture changes, just knowing where to go with the football. Like, we may have reads, and it’s a, ‘Hey we’re one, two, three, checkdown,’ but (good quarterbacks) are like, ‘I don’t know. … That guy’s way off over here, and no one’s covering that guy, and I’m going to throw it to that guy.’ That’s just having a feel and seeing the game.”
Jones obsessively searches for answers.
All the time.
Defensive tackle DeForest Buckner has spent the past half a decade being one of the first Colts to arrive at the team facility every day, sometimes competing with the veteran quarterbacks who’ve cycled through the starting job during his time in Indianapolis for early-bird honors.
Buckner admitted Thursday that Jones has beaten him to the punch by a few minutes this season
Usually to get into the film room.
“He has such an established routine,” wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. said. “There’s been a couple of times during camp where he’s watching film, I walk in there, and he’s teaching me stuff about, ‘Hey, the defense is going to do this. If they do that, do this.’”
Jones is always pulling in players for those conversations.
In the film room, in meetings, in walk-throughs and especially on the practice field.
“Talking to him, you kind of hear what he sees when he looks at the defense,” Bortolini said. “What he’s looking for, what tendencies, what indicators.”
All of those conversations help the entire offense get on the same page.
When somebody’s off-script, Jones isn’t shy about letting his teammates know, prompting second-year receiver Adonai Mitchell to say his new quarterback can be “very demanding.”
If Jones hadn’t built a foundation with all of those one-on-one conversations, those corrections might not carry as much weight.
“He’s there before everyone else, he’s already watching film,” tight end Will Mallory said. “Being able to communicate, hey, versus this concept and this coverage, this is kind of where he wants you, this is where the ball could be placed. He’s very open about that, and that communication makes everyone more comfortable.”
How Daniel Jones became one of the Colts
Football conversations come easier when a quarterback’s already built a rapport with his teammates off the field.
Jones has worked as hard at building relationships as he has in the film room.
The 28-year-old quarterback took any offensive lineman in Indianapolis to dinner shortly after signing with the Colts in free agency, organized throwing sessions with receivers like Pittman and started looking for any chance to hang out with his new teammates outside the building.
An avid golfer, Jones leveraged his passion with any teammate who likes the links, playing golf with everybody from Buckner to Alec Pierce.
“Me personally, I’m very close with him, got really close during OTAs this summer. He likes playing golf a lot, I like to play golf,” Pierce said. “I have a better handicap than him, but he’s been beating me. Right now I’ve been giving him two or three strokes. … I think we should have the same handicap.”
If a teammate isn’t a golfer, Jones finds another way to connect, regularly striking up conversations and asking teammates about themselves, how they’re doing, how they can get together.
“He made sure to build those relationships from the start,” left tackle Bernhard Raimann said. “I think that’s showing every day on the football field.”
How Daniel Jones sees his Colts opportunity
The mastery of the offense, the obsessive preparation, the professionalism won Jones the starting job in Indianapolis.
None of it guarantees he’ll be able to turn his career around with the Colts. By all accounts, Jones has been a consummate professional since he entered the league, earning the reputation through a routine and work ethic first developed by head coach David Cutcliffe at Duke and refined by learning from Eli Manning in his early days in New York.
Ultimately, though, Jones’ six seasons with the Giants ended in disappointment.
“You’re always developing that chemistry and that trust with guys,” Jones said. “Nothing’s more important than what you do on the field on Sunday.”
An NFL quarterback can do everything right off the field — master the offense, make the right calls at the line of scrimmage, become an integral part of the locker room and help his teammates improve through his leadership — and still fall short as a starter in the league. The NFL is littered with backup quarterbacks who do everything right off the field but can’t make enough plays on it.
Indianapolis is a chance for Jones to prove he can be more than a backup.
The Colts do not expect him to be a Pro Bowler. When Indianapolis general manager Chris Ballard outlined his vision for Jones last week, he brought up long-time NFL starter Alex Smith, an efficient, smooth player who ran Andy Reid’s offense like a point guard but couldn’t elevate Kansas City’s offense enough to get the Chiefs to the promised land.
Ultimately, Kansas City ended up drafting Patrick Mahomes to replace Smith.
But the Colts do not plan to ask Jones to be Mahomes.
From the sound of it, Jones has accepted the mission he’s been assigned.
“Understanding where the ball needs to go versus certain looks, certain coverages, I think staying on schedule, generating positive plays, keeping the offense moving forward, sustaining drives,” Jones said. “Obviously, you want to be ready when the when the shot’s there, when you have the big play, take advantage of it, but understand when it’s not. Not holding the ball. Getting it out and letting guys catch and run when we have those chances too.”
The Colts drafted Richardson because his potential offered the promise of a Mahomes-style magician at some point, even if that possibility was inherently remote.
But the team’s offensive inconsistency in 2024, exacerbated by constant changes at the quarterback position and uneven play from Richardson, convinced Steichen he needed consistency from the team’s most important position.
He needed a quarterback who could play speed chess at the line of scrimmage.
“I think that’s going to pay dividends for us,” Steichen said.
The Colts head coach is betting an awful lot on Jones’s ability to handle the complexities of quarterbacking at the NFL level. Indianapolis has now gone four years without a playoff berth and hasn’t won the AFC South since 2014, prompting widespread dissatisfaction with Ballard’s nine-year tenure and the direction of the franchise.
Jones steps into the middle of that fire on Sunday, hoping to rescue the Colts from their doldrums and resurrect his own career after a failed opportunity in New York.
He has been around long enough to know the score.
“Quarterbacks are judged by winning,” Jones said. “Teams are judged by winning games. So that’s what I’m focused on.”
By obsessively searching for answers to any problem that might come up.
Joel A. Erickson covers the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: The pros and pitfalls of Daniel Jones taking over as Colts quarterback
Reporting by Joel A. Erickson, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
