Jayden Daniels' third NFL season could be the most important of his career.
Thus far, Washington Commanders fans have seen two versions of the 2024 No. 2 overall pick. One, during his AP Offensive Rookie of the Year campaign, was a magical superhero who could do no wrong. The other was broken down and overwhelmed.
The NFL is about to meet the real Daniels, and Washington had better hope it's the version of him that took the team to the NFC Championship game two years ago. This franchise has too much riding on him as its long-term quarterback, so failure is not an option.
That said, expectations have to be tempered. It's okay if Daniels doesn't win the NFL Most Valuable Player award, pass for 5,000 yards, or score 50 touchdowns. But he does need to prove he's a sustainable high-level passer.
Jayden Daniels needs 2026 success to flip the narrative back in his favor
Daniels' 2025 season went about as badly as it possibly could have. Not only did he and Washington regress, but the teams of his fellow 2024 first-round passers — Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, and Bo Nix — all took sizable steps forward. In only four months, the Commanders went from the toast of the league to facing criticism that they picked the wrong guy.
Of course, if Commanders fans truly believe in Daniels, then the fates of those other quarterbacks should be irrelevant.
Praying on Maye's or Williams' downfall to make the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner look better reeks of insecurity, stemming from the implied mentality that if he is going to suffer, then his "rivals" deserve to suffer too.
What Washington should really be hoping for is that all of the aforementioned signal-callers have long, successful careers in which they repeatedly outdo one another. For Daniels, that means he will need to rewrite the script.
Staying healthy will be a priority for Daniels. To stay healthy, he will need to protect himself.
He'll need to gain a better sense of when it's worth the risk to take off scrambling, and when it's better to cut his losses. He'll need to get better at finding the open man even when his first read is taken away, and he'll need to keep his mistakes from spiraling as they did a season ago.
Life was easy for Daniels in the 2024 version of Kliff Kingsbury's offense. It was very difficult last year. Only time will tell what it's like with David Blough taking over as coordinator, but regardless, he needs to prove he can adjust.
That will determine everything about the type of quarterback Daniels will be in the long run.
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