How rookie QB sensation sparked shock Super Bowl charge… and reignited ‘best of all time’ debate

Earlier last year, before Jayden Daniels was a Commander and before Washington drafted what it hoped would be its franchise quarterback, new head coach Dan Quinn played a game.

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Appearing as a guest on 106.7 The Fan, Quinn was asked to give the first word that came to mind when each of the 2024 class’ quarterback prospects were mentioned.

Athletic was the word he used for Drake Maye. DC for Caleb Williams, who grew up in the Washington area. And what about Daniels?

“Game changer,” Quinn said.

But forget just game changer. How about franchise changer?

Because for the first time in 33 years, or 12,062 days to be exact, the Washington Commanders are back in the NFL’s championship round.

And while so much can change even in the span of one season (just ask C.J. Stroud and the Houston Texans), you get the sense that this won’t be the last time the Commanders will be here — at least, as long as number five is their quarterback.

Which says a lot considering two of the other quarterbacks left in the Super Bowl race, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, are often spoken about in the same air.

Both the Chiefs and Bills entered the 2024-25 season with receiving corps that, at least on paper, were underwhelming compared to some of the NFL’s other top contenders.

But as long as Mahomes and Allen were healthy, you couldn’t really count either Kansas City or Buffalo out.

In a similar sense, unlike other rookie quarterbacks, Daniels hasn’t benefited from strong defence or special teams play.

Instead, for the most part, the Commanders are in the position they find themselves in this week because of their offence and, specifically, because of their first-year signal caller.

And when Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer asked Quinn if he had ever seen a rookie like Daniels after he inspired Washington to a 45-31 win over Detroit, his coach was emphatic.

“No,” he said.

“The poise in these moments, when it’s the hardest, he’s literally at his best.”

SEASON-LONG QBR AGAINST THE BLITZ (min. 150 attempts)

1. Matthew Stafford 96 (2021)

2. Tom Brady 94 (2014)

3. Dak Prescott 93 (2023)

4. Jayden Daniels 92 (2024)

It is the clarity after the chaos.

It is the understanding that when rookie quarterbacks are supposed to be at their most vulnerable, when an opposing defensive co-ordinator like Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles was scheming up another exotic pressure package to throw at Daniels in their wildcard round game, Daniels is operating with the poise of a veteran who has seen it all before.

And yet, even the most experienced of quarterbacks had fallen victim to Bowles’ blitz-happy play-calling.

But in the win against the Buccaneers, Daniels did what he has done all season long. He was a rookie quarterback not playing like one, processing every different look that Bowles threw at him and getting the ball out quickly when he needed to or using his legs to extend plays when required.

The same went for Sunday’s game win on the road against the Lions, where Daniels finished 11-of-15 for 185 yards and a touchdown against the blitz.

Meanwhile, Daniels was also the first rookie in NFL history to record at least 275 passing yards with a 70 per cent completion rate in a playoff game.

Entering the draft, there was little doubt Daniels had the potential to be one of the league’s best big-play threats, having accounted for 90 plays of 20-plus yards in 2023.

The Athletic’s Dane Brugler described him as a “smooth point guard from the pocket when his eyes stay on schedule”, adding “his dazzling run skills make him a problem for defenses”.

“This isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, but NFL scouts say he forces opponents to defend him like Lamar Jackson,” wrote Brugler.

There were genuine concerns though, starting with the fact Daniels had taken too many hits and that was still a worry early this season, while his pressure-to-sack ratio was also a red flag for many in the analytics community.

Daniels had taken a sack on 24.5 per cent of his pressure drop-backs, marking the worst rate of any first-round quarterback since 2019.

There have been moments in his rookie year where the pressure got to Daniels, but for the most part he has done a great job avoiding sacks.

Even against Detroit when Daniels was blitzed on 43.2 per cent of his dropbacks and pressured on 35.1 per cent, he did not take a sack and was only hit twice, per The 33rd Team’s Dan Pizzuta.

“Going back and watching all his throws against the blitz, what strikes me aside from the incredible decision-making is he has such a good sense of 1) where his answers are but 2) when the answers aren’t there, the ability to check down to his feet,”

ESPN analyst Mina Kimes said on ‘NFL Live’.

“When he scrambles, he’s obviously very explosive and agile and all that, but it’s also always the right decision. He always chooses the right moment.

“That willingness to hang in there until the last second too against pressure is a huge part of why he is able to hit those deep shots against the blitz.”

And if you want to see the impact of Daniels’ accuracy as a vertical passer, you only have to look at the way he has unlocked veteran wide receiver Terry McLaurin.

McLaurin has hit 1,000 receiving yards in every season since his rookie year, achieving that feat largely in spite of sub-par quarterback play (he has had 11 different QBs since being drafted in 2019).

But his 13 touchdowns this season nearly doubled the career-high mark from his rookie year, emerging as a reliable weapon in the end zone for Daniels.

Whenever Daniels dropped back, McLaurin was there. Like he was when he raced past Cam Taylor-Britt for 56 yards late in the second quarter of Washington’s win over Cincinnati, and then again in the fourth when he beat Dax Hill for an improbable, game-sealing touchdown.

That game against Joe Burrow and the Bengals was just one of Daniels’ crowning moments in this rookie season, along with the walk-off Hail Mary against Chicago, five-touchdown heroics to beat Philadelphia and game-winning drive last week against Tampa Bay.

C.J. Stroud’s stellar rookie season set a high bar for first-year quarterbacks to clear, but the Texans signal-caller told the Houston Chronicle earlier this week that Daniels has had “the best rookie season of all time”.

“Records are meant to be broken,” he added.

Daniels is the fifth rookie starting quarterback to reach the championship round in the Super Bowl era along with Brock Purdy, Mark Sanchez, Joe Flacco and Ben Roethlisberger.

The difference between Daniels and those four quarterbacks, however, is the lack of support he has had from Washington’s defence and special teams throughout the season in comparison.

Sure, the Commanders’ defence has definitely improved from the sieve that it was earlier in the year, but the units that the 49ers, Jets, Ravens and Steelers had were still far superior.

There are other contenders for the best rookie quarterback season, including recent examples like Justin Herbert, Dak Prescott and Andrew Luck, but The Athletic’s Robert Mays said that Daniels at the very least deserves to be in the conversation.

“I’m not just going to throw this out there because I haven’t really considered the history of it,” Mays said on The Athletic Football Show.

“I don’t remember watching Dan Marino as a rookie and all this other stuff. Jayden Daniels is absolutely in the conversation for the best rookie quarterback I have seen since I started doing this.

“It’s the poise, the calm and just the processing overall. The assertiveness that he has played the position with this season, how quickly he’s triggering on this stuff, how fast he’s making the decisions when there are those void areas in coverage, where there is a free runner.

“That combined with the fact he just never seems fazed by anything to him.

“There are elements of his game that are unique. He doesn’t do everything that we see unique quarterbacks do in terms of how he moves around the pocket.

“But the fact he moves so quickly from the pocket, it’s made that stuff matter so much less and it’s made him such a better player immediately than I expected him to be and I think that’s such a testament to the way he plays the game between the ears.”

While almost all draft experts had Caleb Williams as their first overall pick in last year’s draft, former NFL quarterback and ESPN expert Dan Orlovsky had a different opinion from the very start.

He was adamant Daniels was the top prospect in the class, rating the LSU quarterback’s pocket presence, deep ball and ball placement against man coverage as the best at the position.

Orlovsky consistently said it as early as February, that if he were in the Bears front office, he would take Daniels.

Of course, considering the absolute disaster that unfolded at Chicago with Williams in his rookie season, those clips of Orlovsky have since resurfaced and gone viral.

The result is everything you would expect. That the Bears made a mistake. That Williams, still only one year into his career, is already a bust while Daniels is the saviour the Bears needed but passed up.

If only things were that simple. Coaching and situation matters. Specifically, it is hard to see Daniels thriving the same way he did in Washington behind that Chicago offensive line and with an unimaginative play-caller like Shane Waldron.

In that sense, while you can’t argue that the Bears would be in a better position had they drafted Daniels given what he put on tape this season, how much better is up for debate.

But Orlovsky said there is still one lesson to be learned from the LSU quarterback’s immediate success in his first season in the league.

“When it comes to the evaluation of stuff, I do think over the last couple of years we’ve really seen that the quarterbacks that played a tonne of college football snaps really benefit from those snaps,” Orlovsky said on ‘This is Football with Kevin Clark’.

“How they see the field, how they handle situations, the highs and the lows.”

There were plenty of highs in Daniels’ rookie season. There weren’t many lows, although he did struggle after playing through a rib injury in Week 7 as Washington’s offence faltered.

But for the most part, Daniels is drawing on the same strengths that made him as a Heisman Trophy winner while also adding to his game and maturing into the kind of dual-threat quarterback that will thrive in the modern NFL for years to come.

He is the game-changer Quinn thought he could be.

It may not lead to a Super Bowl this year, nor will it be a disappointment if it doesn’t. After all, only Carolina, Denver and New England were projected for fewer wins than the Commanders (6.5) before the regular season tipped off.

But Mark Rypien, the last Washington quarterback to lift the Vince Lombardi Trophy, sees the potential in Daniels to do the same.

“The kid, we all know, is gifted. He’s beyond gifted,” Rypien, the MVP of Super Bowl XXVI, told The Athletic.

“To be thrown into the fire right away and doing what he’s been asked to do is nothing short of amazing.”

Can Jayden Daniels and Washington continue their fairytale run to the Super Bowl?

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