Jayden Daniels already showing he’s the start of something good in D.C.

Ralph Vacchiano

NFC East Reporter

The entire Washington D.C. area has already rolled out the red carpet for Jayden Daniels. He’s thrown out the first pitch at a Washington Nationals game. He was a special guest when the U.S. men’s soccer team played a friendly against Colombia. He can feel he’s the center of attention wherever he goes.

That comes with being the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 draft and the franchise quarterback the hard-luck Commanders have been dreaming about for decades. But Daniels seems to understand that fame can be fleeting. His star will fall if he doesn’t quickly live up to all the hype.

“I mean, I ain’t a star quarterback yet,” Daniels said after a minicamp practice on Wednesday. “I got a long way to go.”

But at least he’ll have plenty of time to get there.

That’s because the 23-year-old Daniels certainly appears to be entrenched as the Washington Commanders starting quarterback. He got most of the first-team reps at minicamp this week, despite the presence of his veteran backup, Marcus Mariota, and there’s no indication at all that will change once training camp begins.

There has always been dueling schools of thought on how quickly to throw rookie quarterbacks into the fire. Some prefer them to sit and learn — either for weeks, months, or sometimes even years behind veteran quarterbacks. Others think it’s better to let them start from the beginning so they can get the mistakes of their learning curve out of the way.

And though Commanders coach Dan Quinn won’t commit to anything this early, it seems clear that Washington is leaning towards the latter. This will be Daniels’ team, for better or for worse — or at least as long as they can tolerate any of the bad.

“I think what’s important for Jayden, as the reps are now happening, (is) how are you doing in the execution of those?” Quinn said on Tuesday. “The expectation is just to see how familiar he is with the concepts. We’ve put in a big…


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Publish date : 2024-06-13 16:34:32

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