Dan Quinn says Jayden Daniels 'relentless' about getting better; how Commanders QB can improve in Year 2

It appears Daniels won't be resting on his Rookie of the Year laurels

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels had one of the best rookie seasons a quarterback has ever had. Daniels completed 69% of his passes at an average of 7.4 yards per attempt, threw 25 touchdown passes against just  nine interceptions, ran for 891 yards and an additional six scores, had a passer rating over 100 and a QBR over 70 and checked in eighth in the entire league in TruMedia's expected points added (EPA) per dropback.

Heading into Year 2, it's fair to expect big things of Daniels, even if we know that improvement isn't always linear. Coach Dan Quinn certainly seems like he's expecting Daniels to be even better as a sophomore than he was as a rookie. 

"There is no flinch in Jayden Daniels," Quinn said, via ProFootballTalk. "He's an absolute like, as focused and relentless as you could about getting better. And so that's why I said for us around here, man, we appreciate that and there's a lot of things that he and the rest of us are really digging in hard on to say, all right, can we get this better? And if he does that, I do that, others do that … there's a lot of space we can get better at."

It's worth questioning what, exactly, Daniels can get better at after such a spectacular Offensive Rookie of the Year campaign. So we decided to dig into the numbers and the film to pinpoint some potential areas of improvement.

Let's be clear that these are all extremely nit-picky. Daniels was so good at so many things that it's difficult to find areas of the game where he did not perform well. We're left to drill down on hyper-specific things, some of which may not even be sticky from year to year. With that said, here are a few areas where Daniels could conceivably get better.

Attacking the intermediate middle

According to TruMedia, Daniels checked in 28th in EPA per dropback on throws between the numbers and 5+ yards down the field. He was 21st in both touchdown rate and interception rate, witch a matching 4.5% rate in each of those areas. His 89.6 passer rating on those plays ranked 26th among 36 qualified passers. 

Conversely, Daniels was fourth in EPA per dropback on throws 5+ yards downfield outside the numbers, with a 9.1% touchdown rate and microscopic 1.1% interception rate. The only quarterback with a better passer rating on those throws than Daniels' 122.4 mark was Lamar Jackson.

Getting more help from his slot receivers and/or tight ends would go a long way toward closing this gap.

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Screen passes

The Commanders' screen game wasn't very effective in 2024. Daniels checked in 29th in EPA per dropback and 26th in yards per pass, and he threw two interceptable passes on screens, according to TruMedia. This is an area where the acquisition of Deebo Samuel should hopefully help quite a bit. Samuel has been one of the league's most effective wideouts on screens thanks to his nearly unmatched ability to create yards after the catch. An improved offensive line should also be able to make a difference here.

Third-down passing

Daniels was highly effective on third downs overall thanks in large part to his prolific scrambling, but he did have some relative struggles as a passer in those situations. He completed 60.5% of his passes for 7.2 yards per attempt, with only a 34.5% success rate and a 12.1% off-target throw rate, via TruMedia. He also took sacks on 10.8% of his third-down dropbacks. 

He therefore had a negative EPA per dropback figure when throwing the ball on third downs despite the fact that he threw 10 touchdown passes against only two interceptions in those situations. He was especially ineffective was opponents only rushed four men, ranking 31st in EPA per dropback on those plays. (When he threw the ball against opponent blitzes on third downs, he was dynamite).

Beating Cover-2

The Commies didn't see all that much Cover-2 during Daniels' rookie season, but when they did, they didn't have that much success. Daniels went 27 of 43 for just 193 yards, one touchdown and one interception, according to TruMedia, and he didn't create a single explosive play through the air. 

Two-deep coverages are of course designed to take away the deep passing game, which is Daniels' greatest strength as a passer, but there is definitely room to do better against this type of coverage. He did fare well against Cover-4, which is a sign that he has the ability to beat these types of looks.

Handing quick pressure 

This is typically one of the last things to come along for young quarterbacks. It's so difficult to beat quick pressure if you don't know exactly where it's coming from and when, and that's the type of thing that takes experience to learn. Daniels checked in 26th in EPA per dropback when under pressure within 2 seconds of the snap, per TruMedia, completing 40% of his passes for just 3.0 yards per attempt while taking sacks on 25% of those dropbacks -- far higher than the league average of 15.9% in those situations. 

He did stick a nasty game-sealing touchdown pass against the Bengals under quick pressure, though, one of his three such TD tosses on the season. The talent is clearly there to do this on a consistent basis once he gets an even better hang of the league.