Jayden Daniels: NFL’s No. 2 pick shows league he’s more than a consolation prize

(CNN) — Almost every choice an NFL team makes has the potential to have a significant impact on an organization’s future. But when it comes to choosing a quarterback, a decision can truly be “franchise-altering” – for better or worse.

This is a fact that Washington’s commanders know all too well. Entering the 2024 season, it had been a long time since the franchise had any stability, much less any sign of promise under center.

The Commanders saw long-term investments Robert Griffin III and Kirk Cousins ​​fail to produce any playoff success and cycled through journeyman quarterbacks like Case Keenum, Taylor Heinicke and Carson Wentz in recent years. So when Jayden Daniels arrived in America’s capital and breathed some life into a tired franchise, fans rejoiced.

Selected second overall in the 2024 draft, Daniels helped make Washington’s offense one of the most exciting in the NFL, even though he only played in a few games. Under the leadership of head coach Dan Quinn and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, both hired in the offseason, the team appears reinvigorated.

Despite recently suffering a three-game skid, the Commanders are 8-5 on the year, despite some preseason sentiment that they would be among the worst teams in the league after finishing 4- 13 last year.

The move from college to the pros doesn’t seem to have fazed Daniels at all.

“It would be easy to imagine your confidence being lost because it’s a step up,” said Ben Standig, Commanders writer for The Athletic. CNN Sports. “We haven’t seen any of those issues so far, since spring training started. This is the guy they’re talking about who arrives around 4:30 a.m., five in the morning before the vets arrive.

“He gets along really well with these guys in the locker room. He doesn’t look like a diva or anything like that. He’s a teammate, a friend, I guess, to a certain extent. And you know, on the field, he just doesn’t seem rattled…week after week, you just see the improvement.

A new type of quarterback

Entering the draft, Daniels was praised for his dual-threat ability, providing as much threat as a rusher as he does through the air.

During his 2023 Heisman winning campaign1,134 of his NCAA-leading 4,946 total yards came on the ground, and he is the only player in FBS history to record 12,000 passing yards and 3,000 rushing yards during of his academic career.

While Daniels is a talented runner, his ability to rush isn’t exactly a unique skill anymore. Players like Michael Vic, Russell Wilson and Cam Newton helped redefine the quarterback position in modern times, showing that being a QB is about more than just passing the pocket. Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen are now the faces of a movement that forces order-givers to play with their legs regularly.

It’s becoming a league-wide prerequisite for quarterbacks to be above-average athletes in order for their team to be successful, even if Daniels still manages to stand out.

“It seems like he has a really good sense of what’s going on around him, which allows him to make those plays,” Standig said. “I think it’s probably almost, maybe more so, that he’s able to combine the cerebral with the athleticism that gives him so much ability.”

QBs who shine as rushers can often appear raw in the passing game, although Standig says Daniels entered the league with that already understood.

“He’s a passer more than a runner, and he looks for his guys on the field and eventually finds them,” he explained. “He’s also incredibly accurate with the ball, so he’s able to stay focused on the game itself, but he still has the ability to take off and run when he needs to, and that’s what puts so much emphasis on pressure on the defense.”

Daniels is fourth among starting QBs in completion percentage and in the top 10 in yards per attemptdemonstrating both his accuracy and ability to create a big play down the field. He also kept turnovers to a minimum, throwing just six interceptions in his first 13 games and losing no fumbles.

One of the secrets to Daniels’ early success may have been his unique training regimen. To prepare for games, it uses a virtual reality system that simulates every element of a live game, from the incoming pass rush to the location of the game clock in the opposing team’s stadiums. He began using the system while at LSU.

“He says he rushes plays as high as he can,” Standig said. “I don’t know if it’s 200 miles an hour, but when it gets back to normal, or he’s actually playing the game, it seems a lot slower.

“We always say for the athletes; when the game slows down, that’s when everything starts to activate: you feel what’s happening around you. And that’s clearly what he seems to be doing.

“It’s fascinating and the team embraces it. They are. This is not something that is prevalent in the NFL. I don’t even know if anyone else is doing it, but they are embracing it and seeing the benefits.

What’s next?

For much of the early part of the season, it seemed like everything Daniels touched turned to gold. Nothing illustrated this better than in Week 8 against the Chicago Bears. With Washington needing a touchdown to win the game, with seconds left on the clock and Daniels troubled by a lingering injury, the QB threw a 52-yard Hail Mary pass to the end zone which was knocked down by Chicago’s defense and found somehow. its way into the grateful hands of Commanders wide receiver Noah Brown.

More than anything else, this play confirmed that things were going to be different in Washington this year.

After setting the league on fire in the first half of the season, the Commanders came back to Earth slightly, suffering a three-game losing streak between Weeks 10 and 12. While the Philadelphia Eagles have already snatched the NFC East crown , Washington is under pressure to live up to its electric start and win as many games as possible to secure a Wild Card berth.

The Commanders will need their budding franchise quarterback to be at his dynamic best, but more than anything, they need him to be healthy.

During his college years, Daniels had a penchant for getting out of the pocket and leveraging his rushing ability, exposing himself to big hits down the field from defenders. With his relatively lightweight frame — he officially weighs 210 pounds — concerns about Daniels’ durability arose before the draft.

The 23-year-old suffered a rib injury in Week 7 against the Carolina Panthers, which visibly hampered him against the Bears the following week. For now, Daniels’ best ability is availability.

He will also have to continue to avoid the dreaded “recruit wall”. Players who show promise in their first season can often slow down towards the end of the campaign. For example, Daniels’ completion percentage and QB rating declined from his historic start, although that was probably predictable.

Regardless of how the season ends for Washington, the culture has already started to change in the nation’s capital.

“This was the first year that the new ownership group could really put their stamp on things,” Standig said. “It’s definitely causing people who have been hiding and shutting down their fandom and going into caves to start coming out and being like, ‘Is it OK to come out?’ Can I really believe it?

“The players who have been here for a few years look as perplexed as many of us do.
Like, “Wait, what’s happening? It’s weird. We win, we have fun.
We don’t look stupid.’

It would be unfair to the coaching staff and the rest of the offense to claim that Daniels is solely responsible for the franchise’s rapid turnaround, but the young signal-caller is at the forefront of a revolution in Washington, heralding a new beginning only a handful. of games in his NFL career.

The-CNN-Wire
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