For the Washington Commanders, the 2024 season was full of positive movement for the organization. After winning just four games in 2023, the Commanders hired Adam Peters and Dan Quinn, who collaborated to draft Jayden Daniels with the second overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft. All three of those things sparked the best season the Commanders have seen since 1991.
Daniels did more than revive an organization, though; he took the entire league by storm. He broke records, most of which he shattered, and put the NFL on notice every time he hit the field. He shocked the nation because there were very few who thought Daniels would be able to transition to the professional game so quickly, largely because he didn’t throw a lot of passes to the intermediate middle of the field during his time at LSU.
According to The 33rd Team, which has a cool graphic to illustrate it:
Well, Daniels finished the 2024 regular season with the fifth-highest rate of throws between the numbers and he was routinely able to find throwing lanes to the intermediate level.
On throws between the numbers that went past the line of scrimmage, Daniels ranked 14th in EPA per play. When you consider that even ranking 14th equated to 0.36 per play, he didn’t need to be the best at it for it to have a tangible impact on his game. Just having that available to him at a high rate was more than enough when combined with everything else Daniels brought to the table as a rookie.
This was also a good reflection on “can’t” or “won’t” vs “wasn’t asked to” when we evaluate these types of players and their decision-making.
Their consideration of what players are asked to do in college versus their ability is not always the same. This is likely why Quinn and Peters felt as comfortable as they did drafting Daniels with that second pick. They clearly saw something in Daniels that they didn’t see in any other quarterback (including Caleb Williams), and what they saw absolutely translated to the professional field.