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NFL training camp starts towards the end of July, which means players around the league are getting their last bits of offseason work in before the real work of trying to make the roster begins.

For certain players, this season is what some may call “Make or Break,” meaning they need to put together a productive year or they could be looking for employment elsewhere at the end of the 2024-25 campaign.

We’ll highlight those players for the Giants, starting today with quarterback Daniel Jones.

2023 Stats

– Six starts (1-5 record)

– 909 passing yards with a completion rate of 67.5 percent

– Two touchdown passes with six interceptions and four fumbles

– 206 rushing yards and one touchdown

Why Make or Break?

The Giants committed to Jones ahead of the 2023 season with a four-year contract extension worth up to $160 million. However, a disastrous season has people within the Giants organization reconsidering whether he’s their quarterback of the future after all.

In the first five games, the Giants were completely overmatched, winning just once as they came back from a heavy deficit to edge a lowly Cardinals team that was without their starting quarterback. Jones then missed a couple of games with a neck injury and, on his return, suffered a torn ACL which ruled him out for the rest of the season and will disrupt his preparation for the year ahead.

Some analysts believed the team might draft a new quarterback with a high pick in April’s draft, but the Giants ultimately opted to select wide receiver Malik Nabers, so Jones will get another chance to prove himself in 2024 with better personnel around him. However, the Giants also hedged their bets by bringing in another former first-round pick when they signed Drew Lock in free agency.

November 5, 2023; Paradise, Nevada, USA; New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones (8) passes the football against the Las Vegas Raiders during the first quarter at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports / © Kyle…..

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It hasn’t taken Josh Jacobs very long to jump on the Jordan Love bandwagon. On the eve of his first training camp with Love, the new Green Bay Packers running back spoke of Love the same way Reggie White likely spoke of Brett Favre following his breakout 1992 season. 

“To me, just from what I’ve seen, he has all the traits and all the tools to be a superstar in this league,” Jacobs said, via NFL Media. “I think that as he keeps continuing to play and gets experience and becomes more confident in his abilities and what he can do, he’s going to be the next superstar in this league, for sure.”

Love is looking to build off what was a highly successful first season as the Packers quarterback. After a 3-6 start, Love led the Packers to a 6-3 finish and a wild-card playoff berth. Love then put the rest of the league on notice in Green Bay’s playoff matchup in Dallas. He tamed the NFL’s fifth-ranked scoring…

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The Seattle Seahawks are No. 21 in Yahoo Sports’ 2024 offseason power rankings. (Taylor Wilhelm/Yahoo Sports)

Other NFL team previews: 32. Panthers | 31. Patriots | 30. Broncos | 29. Commanders | 28. Giants | 27. Titans | 26. Raiders | 25. Cardinals | 24. Saints | 23. Chargers | 22. Vikings

Like Super Bowl XLIX, Bill Belichick got the best of Pete Carroll again.

Carroll’s split with the Seattle Seahawks was overshadowed this offseason by Belichick being let go by the New England Patriots, but Carroll deserved flowers too. He won 137 regular-season games as head coach of the Seahawks. He took Seattle to two Super Bowls, winning one. That was the first Super Bowl title in franchise history. Only three coaches have won a college national championship and a Super Bowl: Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer and Carroll.

Carroll wanted to stay. Seahawks ownership was ready for a change. It surprised nearly everyone.

“I did not see this coming,” former Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman said on his podcast. “I did not see them letting Pete go.

“It was a situation where I expected them to let Pete coach as long as he wanted to, and be around as long as he wanted to. He instilled an incredible culture in Seattle.”

It was a seismic event because, like Belichick and the Patriots, the Seahawks hadn’t experienced much success before Carroll. They had seven playoff wins and no championships before Carroll, and 10 playoff wins and one title with him.

“We weren’t anything. And then we were something,” Carroll said, via the Tacoma News Tribune. “We made something special.”

Carroll defined the Seahawks for more than a decade. It will be jarring to see someone else leading them.

Mike Macdonald will have a hard time replacing Carroll, but he was an exciting hire. He had two very good seasons running the Baltimore Ravens’ defense and players rave about his football mind. At age 36, Macdonald has a youthful energy (Carroll is 72, though energy was never a problem for him). Carroll was great, but…

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It’s hard to fathom that Tom Brady has any regrets about his NFL career. Brady, after all, is the only player in league history to win seven Super Bowls and five Super Bowl MVP awards. Brady also won three league MVP awards (tied for the second-most in league history) and is the NFL’s all-time career leader in career passing yards and touchdown passes. 

Brady, however, wishes he would have gone about his craft a little differently. That, he said, is one of his biggest regrets when he looks back on his 23-year career. 

“What I would have changed was … when I see these young players, I see Patrick (Mahomes) out there at quarterback, running around, having fun, I’m like, ‘I used to be like that! What the hell happened to me?’” Brady recently said on “The Pivot” podcast. “I just got too serious. 

“But again, I can only look back and think, ‘OK, if I do it again — which I’ll never do it again — I would be different, but the reality is that you can’t. So you just learn from it and go, ‘OK, in the next phase of life, enjoy it a little more.’” 

Brady possibly taking the game too seriously is one regret he has from a career that is considered to be the greatest in NFL history. Perhaps Brady’s other big regret from his career is the Patriots’ 17-14 loss to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII that prevented New England from becoming only the second NFL team to go undefeated. 

“We were crushed,” Brady said on Apple TV’s documentary on the Patriots dynasty. “I was crushed. That was our history-making game. That would have been everything. … We were as devastated as you could be. There was no sleep. There was no sleep for a long time.” 

Brady and the Patriots didn’t win that game, but the Patriots would go onto win three more Super Bowls during Brady’s run in New England. Brady would then win a seventh Super Bowl win as a member of the Buccaneers at the end of the 2020 season. 

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