National Football League

Why Commanders believe Jayden Daniels is the QB the team has been waiting for

Updated Apr. 27, 2024 10:38 a.m. ET

They've been looking for a new quarterback in Washington for most of the past 40 years, but Adam Peters didn't start searching until January. It was only after he was hired as the new Commanders general manager that he first dug in to the available quarterbacks.

And when he got his first look at tape of LSU QB Jayden Daniels, it was love at first sight.

"I didn't really watch a lot of the quarterbacks hard during the season," Peters said. "And then I turned on Jayden for the first time here, and I couldn't believe it. I honestly couldn't believe how good he was. I saw him on TV, saw him on highlights and everything, but when you really study him as a quarterback — just as a quarterback — he's really, really good."

That first impression turned out to be an understatement in Peters' mind. Soon it became a no-brainer, and no surprise, that he would make Daniels the second overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft and the first pick for the new Commanders regime. Just as importantly, even though he'd never say it like this, Peters' actions would anoint Daniels as the face and the promised savior of one of the NFL's most downtrodden franchises.

It takes a special talent and a special person to thrive under that kind of pressure, to be asked to exceed what might already be unreasonable expectations. It's why Peters spent months diving deep into the pool of available quarterbacks to confirm what he was pretty sure he knew all along.

"We did a lot of work on Jayden," he said. "In terms of every single person we spoke to, it was just exemplary as a person, personal character, football character, his work ethic, his football intelligence, how much he cared, his leadership, how he is as a teammate. They were all exemplary. Every single person you would talk to, it was the same answer.

"So, we felt so good about how awesome of a person that he was on top of watching all that tape. It made us feel really, really good about making this pick. And if we could've run it up, we would've run that pick up."

The confidence is great, and necessary, because Peters knows he can't afford to be wrong about this. It's not that his job is on the line — not after just four months, no games, and one draft pick — but even he knows there isn't a more important move he's likely to make in the first few years of his tenure. It's especially important in Washington, where they're trying to flush out the corroded memories of the Dan Snyder Error and all the poor choices that came with that on and off the field.

The organization's biggest on-field failures, of course, came right at the quarterback position. During Snyder's tenure, from 1999 through the 2022 season, the franchise stumbled through 28 different starting quarterbacks, including four they drafted in the first round. This franchise has gone through a remarkable 12 starting quarterbacks in the six years since Kirk Cousins left town — and that includes Sam Howell, who started all 17 games last year.

NFL teams can't thrive or even survive with that kind of rickety carousel spinning off its axel at the most important position in sports. Of course, they can't survive if the carousel gets stuck on the wrong quarterback for years, either.

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It's why Peters spent so much time investigating North Carolina's Drake Maye, Michigan's J.J. McCarthy, Oregon's Bo Nix and Washington's Michael Penix Jr. — basically all the other top quarterbacks except USC's Caleb Williams, who was always going No. 1 overall to the Bears. This decision was too important to base it on a first impression, to not investigate every other option.

Yet he just kept coming back to the same place.

"We knew it was Jayden for a while," Peters said. "And it would've taken a lot for it to not be Jayden personally, or just in reality. I mean, the whole building was in. I would say [we were] unanimous on that one.

"And it's easy to see why."

One big reason is that Daniels might not have reached his peak yet. He showed an incredible growth spurt over the past year. He was good in his first four college seasons — three at Arizona State and one at LSU — but he never topped 3,000 passing yards or 1,000 rushing yards, and never threw more than 17 touchdowns.

But last season, he exploded. He threw for 3,812 yards while completing a career-best 72.2% of his passes. He threw 40 touchdown passes with just four interceptions, and ran for 1,134 yards and 10 touchdowns, too.

And as Daniels said at his introductory press conference on Friday, he's not done yet.

"I think I still have more in the tank to learn," he said. "I have more ability to tap into. I'm not a finished product."

The current product, though, is already apparently elite. Peters loved Daniels' arm. He called him "the best deep-ball thrower in the draft." But it was his legs that seemed to really energize the GM.

"The way he runs, he just kind of takes your soul as a defense," Peters said. "You know, you think you got him and then all of a sudden, he rips off a 40-yard run. And this is against the SEC. This isn't against some lower competition. This is against the best of the best."

That ability is important for a quarterback in this era, as the league continues to move dramatically away from the statuesque pocket passers. Daniels is a multi-purpose weapon — the kind that seems like an ideal fit for new Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, who had some remarkable success in Arizona with quarterback Kyler Murray, who is similar to Daniels in both stature and style.

Daniels' stature — he's listed at 6-foot-4, 210 pounds — is a concern. A mobile quarterback who likes to run with a frame as slight as his could be considered an injury risk. But Peters shrugged that off, saying, "If that's your biggest problem with somebody, then it's a pretty good deal there.

"He is so competitive. He is so tough. He got up every time," Peters added. "No questions about his toughness or his durability."

The Commanders seemed to have no questions, in fact, about anything about Daniels — including his ability to be the face of a franchise that's trying to rise from the ashes of decades of mismanagement. They're not looking for the next Cousins — a good quarterback who lasted three full seasons as the starter in Washington. They're looking for the next Joe Theismann — a quarterback who reigned in Washington for a decade and won a Super Bowl, too.

That's a lot to ask. But "He's built to handle all this," Peters insisted. "That's on and off the field. He's a very, very mature young man. He is a man, there's no doubt about it. That's what everybody assured me: This is not a college kid. This is a man."

Now he is The Man in Washington, for as long as he lasts, carrying the renewed hopes and once-shattered dreams of a fan base and a region on his slim shoulders. Peters has no doubts that Daniels is the right man to handle that.

In fact, he hasn't had any doubts since the start.

Ralph Vacchiano is the NFC East reporter for FOX Sports, covering the Washington Commanders, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.

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