Eli Manning walked off the field at MetLife Stadium victorious on Sunday, and the expectation is that it will be his final home start -- and potentially his last start as a Giant. But things are still somewhat up in the air.
"We'll just have to see," head coach Pat Shurmur said Monday when asked about the status of Daniel Jones, who has missed the last two games due to an ankle injury.
"We'll just push him along like we did last week," Shurmur added. "We started the week with the idea that he might be ready to play, and we'll do the same this week."
While Jones wasn't declared out until late last week, he was limited in practice and there was never a thought that he would suit up -- not with the Giants able to simultaneously give him another week to heal while giving Manning the chance at a proper farewell -- which he received.
Shurmur was asked on Monday whether he would think twice about playing Manning in the event Jones isn't ready to return -- the idea being that he wouldn't want to "spoil" the potential farewell Manning received on Sunday against the Dolphins.
"No," Shurmur said. "Listen, if Daniel can't go and Eli is our starter, we are going to go in with the idea that we're going to put a winning performance on the field against Washington. So yeah, I don't know - I think that's overthinking it a little bit."
As far as why it's important for Jones to come back before the season ends, Shurmur spoke about the amount of young players who still need to develop with him and the possibility of that bleeding into the 2020 season.
I think it's important for not only Daniel if he gets back in there but for the whole team. It's been pretty well documented for most of the year how young our players are. Young players, if they're good players, they can improve and it can bleed into next season as long as they have a great offseason. I think it would be the same for him.
