Giants 2021 roster profile: QB Clayton Thorson

Clayton Thorson is THAT GUY for the New York Giants. The third quarterback. The guy no fan ever wants to see play because that probably ends badly for the Giants.

Let’s take a closer look at the Giants’ QB3 as we continue player-by-player profiles of the 90-man roster the Giants will bring to training camp.

The basics

Height: 6-foot-4
Weight: 222
Age: 26
Position: Quarterback
Experience: 3
Contract: Year 1 of two-year, $1.491 million contract | Guaranteed: $6,000 | 2021 cap hit: $663,000

Career to date

The Philadelphia Eagles drafted Thorson in Round 5 (167th overall) in the 2019 NFL Draft They cut him at the end of his first training camp.

NJ.com wrote at the time that “No team likes to release players they just drafted, but after the way Thorson performed this offseason and in training camp after being drafted in the fifth round, nobody was going to fault Eagles general manager Howie Roseman for doing that.”

“We’ve got to do what’s best for our football team,” GM Howie Roseman said, “and build our team the way we see fit ... We are not just going to keep guys on the team because we draft them in a certain round.”

Thorson was quickly snapped up by the Dallas Cowboys, where current Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett was in his final season as head coach. Thorson spent the season the Dallas practice squad.

The Cowboys waived him at the start of the 2020 season. The Giants added him to their practice squad in late September, and he is back this season via a reserve/futures contract.

2021 outlook

The Giants have Daniel Jones and Mike Glennon as the top two quarterbacks. It’s hard to see Thorson as more than what he was for the Giants a year ago — a practice squad emergency third quarterback.

Pre-draft scouting reports indicated Thorson’s ceiling was likely as a backup quarterback. That seems to be playing out.