Jayden Daniels has changed the comical Commanders into a serious franchise

There are times in life when second will be first.

In the 2023 draft, the Carolina Panthers made a big trade with the Chicago Bears to pounce and take Alabama quarterback Bryce Young with the No. 1 overall pick. The Houston Texans came in second, winning CJ Stroud of Ohio State.

More than a season later, returns have returned. Young has struggled so much that he’s the backup for a 36-year-old journeyman, and Stroud — who had one of the best rookie quarterback seasons ever — was the runaway NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.

In the 2024 draft, quarterbacks went one and two again. The Bears took Caleb Williams from USC with the first overall pick they got from the Panthers the year before. And then the Washington Commanders selected LSU’s Jayden Daniels at No. 2.

And with that selection, a once comedic franchise seems to have been saved.

Williams has played about as well as the Bears’ offense will allow him to, but after the first four weeks of the 2024 season, Daniels doesn’t just look like the best rookie signal caller in his class — he looks like one of the best starting quarterbacks we’ve ever seen.

The numbers so far are ridiculous.

• Daniels’ EPA per dropback (a reliable indicator of per-play efficiency) of 0.32 is the highest for any starting quarterback in Weeks 1-4 since at least 2000, and Daniels leads the NFL in passing EPA in total with +50.7. That’s some distance ahead of Josh Allen, who is second at +36.7.

• Daniels’ completion percentage of 82.1% is the highest for any quarterback over a four-game span at any time in a career (minimum 100 pass attempts) since at least 1950.

• The Commanders have had 23 scoring drives this season, and Daniels has only 19 incompletes. The 1973 Los Angeles Rams are the only other team in NFL history to have more scoring drives than incompletions in the first four games of a season.

• The 2024 Commanders have the second-highest EPA per drive through the first four games of a season in NFL history. The 2007 New England Patriots, widely considered the best offensive team ever, are the only team with higher overall efficiency.

Some quarterbacks who are ruthlessly efficient become so because they mainly throw cheap stuff under defensive coverages. That’s not Daniëls. On passes of 10-19 air yards this season, he has completed 18 of 21 passes for 294 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, a passer rating of 134.6 and a passing EPA of +29.0 – second best in the NFL running back Brock Purdy. On passes of 20 or more air yards, Daniels has completed two of eight passes for 82 yards, one touchdown, one interception, a passer rating of 69.8 and a passing EPA of +0.4. The deep ball has been one of Daniels’ few shortcomings so far, but you can already see him working through the mistakes and moving forward.

Washington’s 42-14 drubbing of the Arizona Cardinals Sunday was a meaningful homecoming for Daniels, who spent his first three collegiate seasons at Arizona State before transferring to LSU, and for Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, who was the Cardinals’ head coach from 2019-2022. Commandant head coach Dan Quinn made sure to give Kingsbury the game ball after the win, because he knows how much it meant to his OC, and how much Kingsbury took Daniels’ ridiculous attributes to the highest possible level.

Not that Daniels is perfect. As is the case with any rookie quarterback, he occasionally makes a stupid throw. But defenses can’t count on him to make a mistake, and if he does, they should take advantage of it, because he learns from his mistakes, and he does so quickly on the field. We saw that in Sunday’s game. In the first half, Daniels threw his first NFL interception: Arizona cornerback Garrett Williams was in a better position than Washington’s Terry McLaurin with a late, deep pass and picked off the rookie. On Daniels’ next attempt, he again threw late to McLaurin on a deep pass, and Williams almost had another pick. But Daniels calmed down and threw only two incompletions from then on.

“They didn’t really say anything to me,” Daniels said of his coaches and teammates about the interception. “I want that back, but I’m fine, move on to the next part. The NFL is always about the next play. You can’t go back and fix what happened in the past, but no one has really had a conversation with me about that.”

Maybe because they know Daniels rarely makes the same mistake twice.

And for the most part, Daniels has already shown he’s capable of running a complex NFL offense in a way you wouldn’t expect from freshmen. He’s already handling the play according to his physical attributes at a level you’d expect from Patrick Mahomes or Matthew Stafford, the acknowledged masters of pocket moves and the no-look pass. This completion of 17 meters against fellow rookie Luke McCaffrey (Christian’s younger brother) against the Cardinals, Daniels had all that done. It’s hard for a defense to have an appropriate response to a play like this. Something you just have to accept, tip your hat and move on.

While there have been other rookie quarterbacks who started strong in the NFL and then excelled, Daniels seems to be here to stay. Kingsbury has expanded his playcalling palette from his days in Arizona to give Daniels open concepts for his receivers, and while Daniels has no problem going through all the progressions in a play, he also knows when to take the gains his coaches and goals have been set. it. Daniels can play superstardom when he needs to, but he doesn’t rely solely on his physical talents — and at 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, he has a few. Much like his 2023 Heisman Trophy season, Daniels simply understands the game on a different level. That was true when I could watch the tape with him he won that award the day before, and that’s even more true now.

As Quinn said after Sunday’s game, his new quarterback, who won’t let anything (including an Old Home Week return to the Valley of the Sun) affect his preparation.

“I told him earlier that I was very proud of him. I knew there were some additional stories here at ASU. And like Kliff, you would never have known it. I just thought he handled it like a real G. He stayed steady the whole prep,” Quinn said. “He, the quarterbacks and the guys were in the room a lot of late nights watching the tape together. There was only one office down the road from the hotel all week, including last night, and I just put in the extra time. They just stuck around and discussed all the things, so I think that says something about their preparation.

Therefore, as impressive as Daniels has already been, it’s unlikely that he will be a four-game wonder. What you see with this particular wonder is exactly what you get.