What can we expect from Jayden Daniels’ second season?
May 5, 2025
by Steve Thomas
Newsflash: Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels had a pretty decent first season. As a result, Washington fans are justifiably excited for future possibilities, having been witness to one of the most exciting rookie campaigns in modern franchise history. The only season in the recent past that is comparable is Robert Griffin’s 2012 campaign, which he was unable to match ever again. Certainly, we all want the best for Daniels, which would mean that Washington would finally have its long-term franchise quarterback after decades of futility and struggle. What’s going through my head at this moment is how Daniels compared to other top 10 draft picks, and which of those other picks followed up a great first second with a second one.
To form a reasonable basis of comparison, I pulled all quarterbacks drafted in the top 10 of round 1 for the 2005 through 2024 draft classes.
In 2024, Daniels played in 17 regular season games, and completed 331 of 480 pass attempts, a 69.0% completion percentage, for 3568 yards, 25 touchdowns, and 9 interceptions, which equates to a 1.9% interception percentage, and a 100.1 quarterback rating. In addition, he had 148 rushing attempts for 891 yards, 6.0 yards per attempt, and 6 touchdowns.
First, among the quarterbacks in this group who actually started – meaning, discounting obvious bust extraordinaire Trey Lance, who technically had a 97.3 rating in just two starts in 2021 – only Griffin and C.J. Stroud had a higher quarterback rating in their respective rookie seasons than Daniels, with Griffin at 102.4 and Stroud at 100.8. In fact, over the 2005 to 2024 period, only three other quarterbacks who started a full season as a rookie had a quarterback rating of 90 or more in their rookie years: Justin Herbert, who posted 98.3 in 2020, Marcus Mariota, who had a 91.5 rating in 2015, and Baker Mayfield, who put up a 93.7 rating in 2018. Jake Locker, who had a 99.4 rating in 2011, but only played in 5 games, with no starts.
Of all of those quarterbacks, only Mariota improved in year two. He increased his rating to 95.6 in 2016. All of the rest of them fell off in year two of their careers. Both Griffin and Stroud took fairly significant steps back as measured by quarterback rating, with Griffin posting an 82.2 rating in 2012 and Stroud dipping down to 87.0 this past season. Herbert was the only other quarterback in this group who more or less maintained the same level of performance in year two and beyond, with his quarterback rating moving from 98.3 in 2020 to just 97.7 in 2021.
As measured by completion percentage, Daniels’ 69% was the highest or any of the quarterbacks in this group in their rookie year, followed by Drake Maye at 66.6%, Griffin at 65.6%, Joe Burrow at 65.3% in 2020, Kyler Murray, who had 64.4% in 2019, and Tua Tagovailoa at 64.1% in 2020. Of this group, Burrow took the biggest step in his second year, increasing his completion percentage to 70.4%, which stands as the only season in this group – again, quarterbacks drafted in the top 10 of round 1 between 2005 and 2024 – better than Daniels’ 69.0%. Both Murray and Tua also improved, albeit it to a lesser extent.
The point is that it’s very rare for quarterbacks at the level of performance that Daniels achieved this past season to improve on, or even maintain, that kind of success. Really, Justin Herbert is the only quarterback drafted the top one round 1 in the last twenty years who performed in an outstanding fashion as a rookie and was able to sustain his statistical excellence. Herbert and Daniels are different kinds of quarterbacks, obviously, but Herbert should be the guy who Daniels tries to emulate.
In terms of rushing, Daniels’ 891 yards is the highest yardage of any quarterback in this group. In fact, it was the 9th-most by a quarterback in NFL history, behind Lamar Jackson at #1, with 1206 in 2019, then Justin Fields, two Michael Vick seasons, Bobby Douglas in 1972, Randall Cunningham, and Jackson again in 2024.
Daniels had 148 rushing attempts in 2024, which is tied with Jackson’s 2023 season for 8th-most in NFL history for a quarterback. Jackson had 176 attempts in 2019 which is #1, followed by Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields, Jackson again in 2020, and two Jalen Hurts seasons.
Washington has made an effort to improve the quality of his protection, and brought in a new receiver, Deebo Samuel, so the team appears to be set up to give Daniels every chance to succeed, at least in the passing game. That having been said, they’ll have a tougher schedule by virtue of their second-place finish last year, which will make things tougher and bring more pressure and focus onto Daniels.
I do not believe that his rushing is sustainable at his 2024 level. Cam Newton, who was drafted in 2011, had a total of 1118 carries in his career, which is the most in NFL history, followed by Russell Wilson with 1024, Lamar Jackson with 1014 so far, Michael Vick with 873, and Randall Cunningham with 775. These players are essentially unicorns in their ability to rush this much while still being effective and not getting hurt. Overwhelmingly, significant rushing attempts take a toll on quarterbacks. If Washington wants Daniels to continue to excel as a quarterback, they are going to have to find a quality non-Daniels rushing game, which they currently don’t have. Daniels running needs to be the exception, not the main driving force of Washington’s ground game.
There were 36 quarterbacks drafted in the top 10 between 2005 and 2023. In my loose and subjective opinion, 9 of these quarterbacks went on to become “franchise” quarterbacks: Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Jared Goff, Andrew Luck, Patrick Mahomes, Cam Newton, Matt Ryan, and Matthew Stafford. A handful of others are more or less on the cusp: Trevor Lawrence, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, C.J. Stroud, and Tua Tagovailoa. Each one of these quarterbacks, with the exception of Herbert and Stroud, made significant strides in year two. Probably not coincidentally, they were the only ones who were in Daniels’ statistical vicinity as rookies.
In case anyone is wondering, the clear, obvious, and immediate, never good from day one busts were, in alphabetical order, Trey Lance, Matt Leinart, Anthony Richardson, Josh Rosen, JaMarcus Russell, Mitchell Trubisky, and Vince Young. Everyone else is somewhere in the middle, to varying degrees of success and failure.
As everyone knows, though, while Herbert maintained his excellence, Stroud fell off pretty dramatically in year two. Stroud’s trouble was in part due to troubles with the roster – the Texans lost talent on offense, and they failed to protect him. Stroud was sacked 38 times in 2023 and 52 times in 2024. That sort of protection failure did not happen to Herbert, who was also supported with offensive talent.
What’s the bottom line here? The odds of Daniels maintaining the kind of success he achieved in 2024 are long – most fail, even those drafted at the very top of the draft – but it’s possible with the right situation: good protection, a strong running game, talented receivers, and a bit of luck.