When the Giants benched and then cut quarterback Daniel Jones during the 2024 season, it seemed that his days of making significant NFL money had ended. They’re now back.
Jones’ long-term deal with the Giants had an average value of $40 million per year. His one-year transition tender from the Colts has a total value of $37.833 million. If/when he accepts it, the amount will be fully guaranteed — without exception or limitation, despite the fact that he’s still less than three months removed from a torn Achilles tendon.
Jones now has the ability to see what’s out there, and to determine whether a team will sign him to an offer sheet that the Colts perhaps wouldn’t match. Sometimes, teams are reluctant to devote time and effort to essentially negotiating a player’s next deal with his current employer, given the possibility that the offer will be matched. On other occasions, a team will do a favor for the player’s agents in the hopes of having the favor returned later.
Jones is represented by Athletes First. The firm has many clients. If another team is willing to make Jones an offer that the Colts would likely match, that team will have performed an important service for Jones and his representatives.
Of course, that team would have to be willing to acquire Jones under the terms that are offered and accepted, if the Colts choose not to match.
Then there’s the question of whether Jones’s agents will share with the Colts the terms of an acceptable offer sheet before Jones signs it. That would give the Colts an opportunity to rescind the transition tender and to have Jones’s departure count toward next year’s compensatory draft pick formula. (If Jones signs an offer sheet and the Colts don’t match, his departure will become irrelevant to the compensatory pick process.)
Through it all, Jones has the ability to accept the one-year offer and to receive $37.833 million for 2026. It would be a significant bump over his one-year, $14 million deal from a year ago. And it would set him up for another opportunity to hit the market in 2027, with the Colts having the franchise or transition tag available again.
Bottom line? It’s not a bad spot for Jones to be in. Especially since he’s not currently healthy.
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