What would a successful season for Jayden Daniels look like in 2026?
February 23, 2026
by Steve Thomas
It’s not news to anyone to point out that Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels had an amazing rookie year in 2024 and then a disastrous second year in 2025. Next season will be year three for Daniels, which is pretty critical – after all, year three of a rookie contract for a first round pick is the first year a team can extend the contract by exercising the fifth year option after the season. More importantly, though, Daniels needs to prove to the team, the fans, and himself – everyone – that 2025 was an aberration and he really is the franchise quarterback he was drafted to become. What does Daniels need to accomplish in order to make that happen? Let’s explore.
First, let’s review what Daniels has accomplished so far. In two NFL seasons, he’s played in 24 total games, completing 445 passes in 668 attempts, for a 66.6% completion percentage, 4830 yards, 5.7 yards per attempt, 33 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and 1.8% interception rate, for a quarterback rating of 96.7. On the ground, he’s had 206 carries for 1169 yards, 5.7 yards per carry, and 8 touchdowns. However, his 2024 was vastly different than 2025. In 2024, Daniels played in all 17 games, and made 331 completions in 480 attempts, for a 69.0% completion percentage, 3568 yards, 6.0 yards per attempt, 25 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, and a 1.9% completion percentage, for a 100.1 quarterback rating, plus 148 carries for 891 yards, 6.0 yards per carry, and 6 touchdowns. In 2025, he only played in 7 games, with 114 completions in 188 attempts, for a 60.6% completion percentage, 1262 yards, 4.8 yards per attempt, 8 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, and a 1.6% completion percentage, for an 88.1 quarterback rating, plus 58 carries for 278 yards, 4.8 yards per attempt, and 2 touchdowns. Obviously, Washington was 12 – 5 in 2024, second place in the NFC East, and lost in the NFC Championship game, and was 5 – 12 and third place this past season.
Those are the facts. The question that’s going through my head right now is what a positive, franchise quarterback-worthy season will look like in 2026. The answer to this isn’t solely a statistical issue – there’s no bright line in the sand or 100% objective criteria through which we can measure his performance. “Franchise quarterback” is a very subjective term that is, frankly, thrown around way too loosely. What we do know is that Daniels’ performance this past year didn’t cut it. One can blame the coaches, the players around him, injuries, and probably a host of other things as well, but the bottom line is that Daniels failed this season. Let’s all admit that much.
Regardless, in an attempt to put some sort of objectivity to this question, I arbitrarily did a search for every quarterback who started 13 games in a season who averaged 65.0% or more in completion percentage, 3500 or more passing yards, and had a quarterback rating over 100 since 2015. That came out to 55 separate seasons by 29 quarterbacks, including Daniels. As a result, that doesn’t seem like too much to ask as a starting point.
That’s also not a particularly elite group, though, so I next threw in interception percentage and further limited the group to those quarterbacks who also had an interception percentage below 2%, meaning 1.9% or lower. That resulted in 37 seasons by 22 different quarterbacks. This broke down to between 2 and 6 quarterbacks a season between 2015 and 2025.
Of those 37 seasons, quarterbacks also rushed for 500 or more yards in just 6 of them, including Daniels in 2024. However, given Daniels’ injury history in 2025, I don’t think gross rushing yards should be part of this equation. He clearly is susceptible to injury, so in my view the team should only rely on his rushing ability in the event of broken plays. I don’t think Daniels should be running RPOs or called runs very often at all going forward. So let’s eliminate that from the equation.
Throwing wins into the calculus limits the pool even further. Of those 37 seasons, 28 of them, b 17 different quarterbacks, also included 10 wins for the quarterback’s team, with just 6 coming for teams with 8 or fewer wins. I recognize that wins, by themselves, are a team statistic and should not be attributed to just one player. That having been said, we are all aware that, more than any other player, quarterbacks get the lions’ share of both the credit and the blame for successful seasons. Besides, franchise quarterbacks win, right?
Note that I left out touchdowns – the reason is that the touchdowns are going to happen for quarterbacks who can produce this much in one season. In fact, in these 37 seasons, the minimum was 22 touchdowns. I therefore don’t view this as much of a limiting factor.
After going through that exercise, I think that in total, this is a pretty good statistical measurement of a very high quality, “franchise quarterback” caliber season, don’t you? Completion percentage of 65% or more, quarterback rating of 100 or more, 3500 or more passing yards, interception rating below 2.0%, and 10 wins. In my view, those are all doable – if anything, the fact that these were accomplished 37 times in 11 seasons isn’t elite enough. Daniels accomplished all of those things in 2024. Therefore, those numbers should be Daniels’ minimum statistical goals in 2026.
All that I’ll point on about Daniels’ rushing abilities is that, as mentioned above, his average yards per carry dropped from 1.2 yards, 6.0 in 2024 to 4.8 in 2025. I don’t think he necessarily needs to keep up a 6.0 yards per carry average for the rest of his career, but I’d like to see an increase back to something along the lines of what we saw in 2024.
The subjective side of what’s going to be a successful, franchise-caliber season for Daniels is harder, of course. My biggest compliant about Daniels in 2025 as compared to his rookie year was that his accuracy great suffered. He was outstanding at hitting players in stride in contested situations in 2024, but in my opinion, he was much less successful this past season. We need to see that Daniels has the confidence to make those sorts of plays on a regular basis.
I don’t believe that confidence was a problem for Daniels in 2025 – he seemed to still have confidence in himself, and his teammates never wavered in their belief in him. That might change if he doesn’t improve in 2026, but if that happens, it will be more the symptom rather than the disease itself.
Daniels’ ability to stay healthy is a huge key to his overall success. The myriad of injuries that he suffered in 2025 simply cannot continue if he’s going to be a 10 year, franchise quarterback. Robert Griffin III is a prime example of how a promising career can go south quickly in part due to injuries.
The fact that the team has hired a new offensive coordinator matters – we’ll see whether that it’s for better or worse, but what’s indisputable is that he’ll need to learn at least some aspects of a new offensive system. Also, more weapons in the ball-handling players will obviously help, as will fewer team injuries.
Overall, there isn’t going to be a conclusive, bright line test that will tell everyone that Jayden Daniels really is a franchise-level quarterback. Part of the answer to this is simply going to be intuition and opinions in the minds of the coaches, players, and fans. But there’s no doubt in my mind that statistical success as I’ve detailed above will be a part of this determination, even if it isn’t precisely those specific numbers. Blowing one statistic isn’t necessarily the be-all, end-all of this question.
What do you think Daniels needs to accomplish next year in order to him to get back on the road of a “franchise quarterback”? Let me know in the comment section below.