{"id":849308,"date":"2026-08-07T10:50:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/849308\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T10:50:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:50:31","slug":"the-nfl-thinks-jayden-daniels-is-the-13th-best-qb-in-2026-hell-be-way-better-than-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/849308\/","title":{"rendered":"The NFL thinks Jayden Daniels is the 13th-best QB. In 2026, he\u2019ll be way better than that"},"content":{"rendered":"

ASHBURN, Va. \u2014 It has taken only six practices<\/a> to watch Jayden Daniels and come to a way-too-quick-but-still-definitive conclusion: There aren\u2019t 12 NFL quarterbacks better than this guy.<\/p>\n

More than that: The player who had maybe the best rookie quarterback season in NFL history is ready to put himself squarely in the top tier of QBs \u2014 en route to annually becoming one of the best.<\/p>\n

Are these burgundy-and-gold-colored glasses? Probably. Does such an assessment come with caveats? Yes, and we\u2019ll get to them.<\/p>\n

But we come to this topic because a) there\u2019s no more important subject for the Washington Commanders\u2019 present and future, and b) the league has voiced its doubts, and they\u2019re significant.<\/p>\n

The Athletic\u2019s Mike Sando published his annual quarterback tiers<\/a> this week. A year ago \u2014 coming off his dazzling rookie season and an appearance in the NFC Championship Game \u2014 Daniels landed just outside Tier 1 and seemed destined to remain a fixture there. He ranked sixth, the highest debut in the history of Sando\u2019s rankings. (Rookies aren\u2019t eligible to be considered, because the wide array of voters hasn\u2019t seen them yet.)<\/p>\n

This year: 13th. Tier 2. Behind both Caleb Williams and Drake Maye, the players he was sandwiched between at the top of the 2024 draft. Behind Jordan Love and Brock Purdy. In the same tier as Trevor Lawrence.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got to reprove it,\u201d a defensive coach told Sando.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s fair. It says here he will.<\/p>\n

Commanders\u2019 Daniels looks sharp; questions remain at key positions<\/p>\n

Nicki Jhabvala<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the most important caveat: Daniels has to stay healthy. A tumble in a quarterback rankings list \u2014 a deeply reported project that surveys all manner of NFL team officials, not one pulled out of thin air \u2014 was anchored in the fact that Daniels played in only seven games a year ago. That inactivity came from four injuries \u2014 a left knee sprain in Week 2, a right hamstring strain in Week 7, an avoidable elbow dislocation in Week 9, and an aggravation of that elbow injury in Week 14.<\/p>\n

Those matter. They must be avoided. Availability is a tool, and in Daniels\u2019 case, it\u2019s practically the only tool that raises questions. (Well, he should probably be more judicious about how and how often he runs, but we\u2019ll get to that, too.)<\/p>\n

Put health aside for a minute. The case for Daniels rebounding from a disjointed and, frankly, underwhelming sophomore season is built on a few things.<\/p>\n

One of them is accuracy. Daniels spent the first six sessions of training camp \u2014 during which the offense has looked better and better in 11-on-11 work \u2014 placing plenty of balls exactly where they need to be. These aren\u2019t just completed passes. They\u2019re passes that are either dropped in the only area where a receiver can snag them or are timed so perfectly that the pass catcher doesn\u2019t have to break stride and can gain significant yards thereafter.<\/p>\n

Two that stand out: a play on which the pocket broke down and Daniels kept his eyes down the field, pulling the ball back in once before zipping a laser to tight end Chig Okonkwo to a low spot at the back of the end zone \u2014 a place where only Okonkwo, who had a man draped on his back, could make the catch. Another: a low liner to receiver Luke McCaffrey right down the seam, a ball that hit McCaffrey in stride and allowed him a significant opportunity for yards after the catch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the location of the throw,\u201d coach Dan Quinn said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of his superpowers is the accuracy. \u2026 Now, in a new system, can he elevate that further?\u201d<\/p>\n

About that new system: That\u2019s another reason to bet on a Daniels bounce-back. No, new offensive coordinator David Blough has never before designed a scheme or called plays. But the transition from Kliff Kingsbury was intentional, and it came with Daniels in mind.<\/p>\n

Offseason workouts and the first week-plus of camp were filled with receivers in motion, with Daniels under center on some snaps and in the shotgun on others, with multiple looks and personnel deployed in all kinds of packages. Daniels will have very few designed runs, and he will primarily use his legs when plays break down. That could help keep him healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we start incorporating this new offense, we\u2019re both just trying to learn our assignments so we can take care of our job first,\u201d wideout Terry McLaurin said. \u201cAnd then we talk about the little nuances.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the amount of time Daniels and McLaurin have spent chatting \u2014 and how many conversations McLaurin has with his fellow receivers on the sidelines \u2014 the nuances are obviously being discussed. But don\u2019t let the tiny wrinkles overshadow another massive reason Daniels might bounce back: McLaurin\u2019s constant presence.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to overstate how disruptive McLaurin\u2019s absence from offseason workouts and his \u201chold-in\u201d during most of training camp were for the entirety of the 2025 season. The flip side of that: His presence during this offseason and into the summer \u2014 including a trip to Southern California to work out with Daniels and the other receivers \u2014 can only be a positive for the entire offense.<\/p>\n

McLaurin is the Commanders\u2019 best receiver, and it\u2019s not close. In the five seasons before last year\u2019s injury-plagued disaster, he averaged 80 catches for 1,092 yards. Last year, in a career-low 10 games, he caught just 38 balls for 582 yards. A return to his usual production goes a long way to making Daniels right again, and this week\u2019s addition of veteran wideout Stefon Diggs<\/a> means defenses will have another proven option they must account for.<\/p>\n

Now, jumping into the top tier of quarterbacks\u00a0is a big ask following that disappointing 2025 season. It wasn\u2019t just his health.<\/p>\n

Daniels\u2019 completion percentage dropped from 69.0 in 2024 to 60.6 last year. His yards per attempt fell from 7.4 to 6.7. His QBR dropped from 67.7 to 44.7. More than that: 2024 was filled with so many \u201cHow did he do that?\u201d plays, and 2025 was marked by long periods on the sideline wearing a hoodie \u2014 and a 2-5 record in the games he did start. So, yes, he absolutely has to reprove it.<\/p>\n

But if Daniels plays somewhere between 15 and 17 regular-season games \u2014 the biggest \u201cif\u201d imaginable, I know \u2014 then it says here he will reprove it. He\u2019s too talented, too dedicated and too bright not to. The bet is we get to January, and Commanders fans \u2014 along with coaches and execs across the league \u2014 are saying,\u00a0 \u201cThere aren\u2019t five quarterbacks I\u2019d rather have than Jayden Daniels.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASHBURN, Va. \u2014 It has taken only six practices to watch Jayden Daniels and come to a way-too-quick-but-still-definitive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82,1758],"class_list":["post-849308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-washington-commanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}