Gettleman witnessed Jones’s tenacity during the Senior Bowl, when, after a stalled first drive, he led his team to consecutive touchdowns in the second half. About a month later, Jones ran the 40-yard dash in 4.81 seconds at the N.F.L. combine, but knew he was faster than that. He trained leading up to his pro day at Duke, on March 26, where he ran a 4.64 in front of a contingent of scouts.

When Gettleman and Coach Pat Shurmur met with Cutcliffe, they asked him about Jones’s maturity and ability to handle New York. Cutcliffe’s answers evoked someone they knew well — another 6-5, classically trained, brown-haired quarterback from the South.

“They’re very similar in so many ways,” Shurmur said of Eli Manning and Jones, “that it’s easier for us to see who Danny’s going to be.”

About Those Memes

Those comparisons are flattering. The ones on social media, less so.

When Kanyon Tuttle, a friend from Latin, forwarded him a tweet saying Jones could play Eli in a Peyton Manning biopic, he replied with laughing emojis.

“I listen to interviews of people asking him, ‘Are you going to use this as motivation?’” said David Herrmann, a close friend from Latin. “But Daniel, really, genuinely, more than anyone I’ve ever met, doesn’t really care about that stuff.”

He does care about validating the Giants’ faith in him. He wants to play for 15 seasons and win Super Bowls and set the standard for his position. Jones would have to keep on conquering skepticism just as he always has, first as a scrawny sophomore at Latin, then as a walk-on at Duke, and now as a discounted draft pick.

He is not about to divert from that progression now. That’s just not who Daniel Jones is.