NFL insider Albert Breer recently explained why quarterback Daniel Jones chose the Indianapolis Colts over the Minnesota Vikings.
NFL insider Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated recently explained why quarterback Daniel Jones chose the Indianapolis Colts over the Minnesota Vikings.
In one word, it was the opportunity that Jones believed existed in Indianapolis over Minnesota.
Jones would sign a one-year, $14 million deal to join the Colts, which included up to $3.7 million in incentives. As Breer mentions, the Vikings’ contract offer to Jones was “in the right neighborhood,” so money wasn’t the ultimate factor in Jones’ decision.
But instead, as Breer put it, Jones saw the Colts as the “better chance to win and keep” the starting quarterback job compared to the Vikings, who used a first-round pick last April on JJ McCarthy.
“If he went back to Minnesota and J.J. McCarthy turned the corner in the coming weeks, and maintained the momentum into the spring, given that the Vikings just took him 10th in the 2024 draft, it’d have been hard for Jones to dislodge him from the lineup,” Breer wrote. “Anthony Richardson, conversely, is at the end, rather than the start, of his window to make the team that drafted him his own.”
Breer adds that he believes if Jones does outperform Anthony Richardson this summer, the Colts won’t have an issue starting him at quarterback.
Jones was released last season by the New York Giants before joining the Vikings’ practice squad. Before being let go, Jones had completed 63% of his passes, his lowest mark since the 2020 season. He averaged just 6.1 yards per attempt–which ranked 39th out 44 quarterbacks–and Jones had eight touchdowns to seven interceptions, according to PFF.
With Richardson, as Shane Steichen put it at the NFL combine, the biggest thing right now is consistency, but both he and GM Chris Ballard believe that the competition can help elevate Richardson’s game.
