The New York Giants should take note of what the Cleveland Browns showed in their upset victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers last week.
Sometimes just having competitive players is enough for teams with losing records to get the best of playoff contenders. The Giants didn’t show much fight in their embarrassing loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Now rumors are swirling about Giants coach Brian Daboll’s job security. He’s getting the bulk of the blame with Daniel Jones enjoying being courted by contenders during his free agency. Perhaps Jones should consider joining the Browns because they haven’t checked out of this season and have a productive scheme under coach Kevin Stefanski.
But Jameis Winston is making a strong case for being in the mix for the starting job in Cleveland next season now that it seems the team is finally considering the possibility of benching Deshaun Watson when healthy.
Let’s take a look at the Browns’ and Giants’ situations for this week’s Fact or Fiction.
Jameis Winston should be considered for the Browns’ 2025 QB job
Manzano’s view: Fact
Wide receiver Jerry Jeudy appeared headed for another disappointing season with the only difference being that he’s now with the Browns after spending his first four seasons with the Denver Broncos.
But Jeudy has made an impact the past four games, including six catches for 85 yards in Thursday’s upset win against the Steelers. A week earlier, Jeudy had six catches for 142 yards and one touchdown in Cleveland’s loss to the New Orleans Saints.
It’s probably not a coincidence that Jeudy is now making plays in Stefanski’s scheme with Winston at quarterback. The same can be said about second-year receiver Cedric Tillman—but maybe that one is more about opportunities opening up after the team traded Amari Cooper to the Buffalo Bills.
By now, the Browns must know that Stefanski isn’t the cause for Watson’s struggles in Cleveland because essentially every quarterback not named Watson has flourished in this scheme, from Baker Mayfield to Joe Flacco and now Winston. And the Browns’ front office and ownership have known that for a while because they extended Stefanski’s contract in the summer. But maybe now they’ll admit that Watson is the problem after watching how productive the offense was with Winston during last week’s snow game.
With a losing season, the team might be forced to pick between Watson and Stefanski in the offseason, and it appears the head coach could be winning that battle after Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported that the team is now considering adding competition for Watson.
Winston should be in the mix if he can pull off a few more upset wins, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Browns draft a quarterback. They probably can’t get rid of Watson’s monstrous contract next offseason, but they’re finally at least considering options because of the results Winston has shown in the past month by getting Jeudy and Tillman to make impact plays.
Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers will make noise in postseason
Manzano’s view: Fiction
The Los Angeles Chargers really missed running back J.K. Dobbins in the second half of Monday night’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens. It was a reminder that this team doesn’t have enough depth and star power to execute Jim Harbaugh’s scheme and values properly against the better teams.
Justin Herbert has made it work with rookie second-round receiver Ladd McConkey and veteran tight end Will Dissly as his top two targets for most of this season. But Herbert struggled to get them the ball, losing their balanced attack once Dobbins exited with a knee injury. Dobbins had a team-high 40 rushing yards, despite missing most of the game.
Harbaugh has helped the Chargers (7–4) build a strong foundation by improving the offensive line and rushing attack, while GM Joe Hortiz repaired the salary cap by releasing the team’s best wide receivers of the past few seasons (Keenan Allen and Mike Williams). Perhaps next offseason is when the team begins to prioritize the outside positions to allow Herbert to keep pace with the top offenses in the league. (Second-year wide receiver Quentin Johnston had a brutal drop on third down that took the air out of the team in the second half.)
The defensive side could also use more youth and talent, but defensive coordinator Jesse Minter managed to mask the Chargers’ weaknesses with a strong scheme that smothered the bad teams. But all the flaws appeared against the Ravens, leading John Harbaugh to record a third win against his little brother. Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers are off to a strong start in this new era, but they’re a year away from making real noise in the AFC.
Daniel Jones should join a contender as a backup QB
Manzano’s view: Fact
Jones will reportedly take his time deciding which team to join and is strongly considering being a backup for a contending team. If that’s true, Jones has the right approach after six rough seasons as New York’s starting quarterback.
Learning from the sidelines and seeing how a good team operates could be the key to reviving Jones’s career next season. Mitchell Trubisky created opportunities for himself by being Josh Allen’s backup for a season and having Bills players and executives rave about him after his one-year contract expired in 2022. That one didn’t work out because Trubisky struggled in the games he started for the Steelers in ’22 and ’23, returning to Buffalo to be Allen’s backup this season.
But a change of scenery worked out for Sam Darnold and Mayfield before joining the Minnesota Vikings and Buccaneers, respectively. Coincidentally, the duo were teammates on the Carolina Panthers in 2022 and needed another stop before fully igniting a career rival. Darnold learned under San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan last season, and Mayfield went to Sean McVay’s school of quarterbacks with the Los Angeles Rams for the final five games of the ’22 campaign before winning the starting job in Tampa Bay the following season.
If Jones takes this route, it will require patience from the 2019 first-round pick, but he might be O.K. with this after how dysfunctional it was with the Giants the past six seasons.
Brian Daboll needs a decent performance on Thanksgiving to save job
Manzano’s view: Fact
Speaking about those dysfunctional Giants, they might have hit rock bottom in their first game without Jones, and for Daboll’s sake it better not get worse than the 30–7 loss against Mayfield’s Buccaneers.
Losing that badly at home after a bye week is the kind of game that lingers in the minds of NFL owners. Daboll is a talented offensive play-caller, but it won’t bode well for him if players are starting to check out this season. Breer had an interesting note about Giants owner John Mara possibly leaning toward keeping Daboll and GM Joe Schoen beyond this season but mentioned that the concerning quotes that came out of the Giants’ locker room after the embarrassing loss could change the thinking of the top boss. You better believe Mara is paying attention to what his best players are saying after games.
It wouldn’t be a reach to say the Giants need a decent performance on Thanksgiving against the Dallas Cowboys to save Daboll’s job. A pathetic effort in a prime-time game could put Daboll on a scorching hot seat. As for Schoen, he might not be able to overcome his poor judgment with how he handled the Saquon Barkley contract negotiations. As we all saw on Hard Knocks, Mara was clear that he didn’t want Barkley to leave and join a divisional rival in the NFC East. Now Barkley is an MVP candidate for the rival Philadelphia Eagles.
Schoen and Daboll really need Tommy DeVito or Drew Lock to pull off an upset on Thanksgiving. That’s where the 2–9 Giants are at in 2024, but we’ll soon find out if this is rock bottom.
Seahawks’ defensive improvement won’t last
Manzano’s view: Fiction
A few weeks ago, many viewed the Seattle Seahawks as the fourth best team in the NFC West after losing five of six games.
Coach Mike Macdonald might have agreed with those assessments, judging from the aggressive moves the team has made in the past month to spur the defensive improvement. First, the Seahawks traded linebacker Jerome Baker to the Tennessee Titans in exchange for linebacker Ernest Jones IV. The team was well aware of Jones’s talented skill set, playing him twice a year during his three seasons with the Los Angeles Rams.
Ironically, the Rams desperately miss Jones and now he might get a contract extension in Seattle with how well he’s playing under Macdonald. The team also cut linebacker Tyrel Dodson because he wasn’t a scheme fit after the team signed him to a one-year deal in the offseason.
Now the moving parts are starting to fit well for Macdonald after the defense carried them back to the top of the NFC West standings following wins over the 49ers and Arizona Cardinals in back-to-back weeks. This probably isn’t a fluke and could be the beginning of a dominant defense brewing in Seattle. Macdonald turned the Ravens into the best defense in the league last year and Baltimore has missed its former defensive coordinator.
If the Seahawks get improvements from Geno Smith’s offense, they might be considered the favorites in the NFC West, which not many saw coming a few weeks ago.
More NFL on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL Fact or Fiction: Jameis Winston Is in the Mix for Browns’ 2025 Starting QB Job .