The New York Giants found their center of the future when they drafted John Michael Schmitz in the second round of the 2023 NFL Draft earlier this spring. With Schmitz now in the fold, he and quarterback Daniel Jones are working to get on the same page with how the rookie snaps the football.
Schmitz is a proponent of the "dead snap" technique, which is when the center has the tip of the football inside of his palm and sends it back in more of a pendulum motion instead of a traditional spiral where the center would be holding onto the laces. While this may be new for the Giants and Jones, this technique isn't as foreign as it may appear and has been used before in the NFL and is more prevalent in the college game.
That said, Jones has never had experience with this technique even dating back to his days at Duke or in high school. He and Schmitz did have a conversation before they hit the field for offseason workouts and the two have agreed to experiment with it throughout OTAs.
"As long as it gets back to me," Jones told ESPN.
Seems the Giants & Bobby Johnson are allowing John Michael Schmitz stay with the “dead ball” snapping technique. pic.twitter.com/LeQcSHIO0S
— Bobby Skinner (@BobbySkinner_) May 5, 2023
Schmitz also said following the draft that he would be willing to change his approach and go with the more traditional snapping motion if he and Jones were unable to get on the same page with the "dead ball" technique, but it does seem like things are going smooth to this point.
"It's been good," Jones said. "Yeah, I'm good with it. He's accurate."
The Minnesota product appears to have the inside track of being the team's starting center right out of the gate in Week 1 and has reportedly already been taking first-team reps throughout this period of the offseason program.
"He's been great, too. He's been great," Jones said of Schmitz. "He's a smart guy. Been in here working hard. He's on it every day, working to learn and understand what we're doing in protections, what we're doing in the run game. Obviously, this is more of a passing camp. So, a lot of that run stuff's happening in meetings and then walkthroughs out here. But he's doing a great job, and it's been fun working with him."
Given that the calendar is only now just turning to June, both Jones and Schmitz have plenty of time to get into a rhythm before the snaps count for real by the time the regular season rolls around.
