When Jayden Daniels leads the Commanders into Miami, he’ll be looking to expand on the big-play capability he showed in Washington’s 20-17 loss to the Jets in their preseason opener. Daniels only played for a single drive, but he delivered a highlight reel show, connecting with Dyami Brown for 42 yards on just his second throw, then following up on that dime with a three-yard touchdown run.
Fans will want to see more, but whether it’s coming or not is an entirely different coaching question. The Commanders know what they have in Daniels, so the idea will probably be to get him another drive or two, perhaps even a quarter. After that they’ll probably put him back in bubble wrap until their final preseason game against New England, then go full-tilt with Daniels in their real opener against Tampa Bay.
The Jayden Daniels dual-threat conundrum
While Caleb Williams and Drake Maye certainly qualify as athletic quarterbacks, Daniels is definitely best-in-class when it comes to dual-threat QBs. He called an audible on the play where he dropped a dime to Brown, and based on his LSU scouting report no one was very surprised to see his deep-ball accuracy.
But Daniels still hasn’t thrown a drop-back pass at the pro level, so that will likely be on the docket in Miami. They’ll want to get him accustomed to throwing in a crowded pocket at some point very soon, and Daniels took some criticism in college for taking some big hits on his slight frame when he left the pocket.
This is the intrinsic problem when you draft a guy like Daniels for his legs as well as his arm. You want to give him free rein to escape from the pocket and run free for big yardage, but the balancing act can be incredibly difficult.
Older Washington fans doubtless remember the initial success of Robert Griffin III, who was shredding defenses with his legs on a regular basis until coach Mike Shanahan got too cute and basically ruined RG3’s career by making it a regular part of the team’s offense. The knee injury that followed was probably inevitable given that strategy, but that didn’t mean it had to happen.
We’ve seen this movie before with Tua
If the Washington coaching staff wants to see an example of what happens when you risk letting your athletic QB run free, all they’ll have to do is look across the sidelines at Tua Tagovailoa. He came into the league as an out-of-the-pocket genius at Alabama, although the hip injuries he had there turned out to be an unfortunate foreshadowing of where his career was headed.
Tua’s slight frame was even more of a concern at the NFL level, and those concerns were quickly borne out on the field. Tagovailoa took some terrifying hits both in and out of the pocket, especially the one in which he was laid out to the point where we all learned what a rictus reaction is when you sustain a concussive hit.
That risk remains prominent with Tagovailoa today, to the point where the Dolphins have been reluctant to sign Tua's long-term deal. They finally caved and made him a $50M-a-year man, but the new contract also contains a couple of escape-hatch outs for Miami if Tagovailoa is unable to stay healthy.
Hopefully, that won’t be an issue with Jayden Daniels, but there’s a certain amount of finger-crossing that goes into this process. The outcome all of us would love would be pocket passing success that keeps his pass/run ratio at a healthy level and keeps him upright through his entire rookie year.