Ghosts of QBs past: Jayden Daniels thriving where so many others failed for Commanders

To describe the historic start of Jayden Daniels’ rookie season, Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn referenced the supernatural.

“I definitely understand our fan base has been waiting for the franchise QB,” Quinn said in late September, “but I also don't want Jayden feeling any ghosts.”

The ghosts of QBs past have haunted Washington for decades. Daniels became the 27th quarterback to start a game for the franchise since 2000. The “ghosts” included Gus Frerotte and Jason Campbell, Kirk Cousins and Robert Griffin III, Ryan Fitzpatrick (for one quarter) and Alex Smith, Mark Brunell and Donovan McNabb.

Then the quarterback of the future – or the ghost of QB present, depending on one’s perspective – arrived. Daniels is the favorite to win Offensive Rookie of the Year, and the Commanders are 9-5 for the first time since 1992.

It’s not the first time a rookie in Washington, taken second overall that year, has set the league on fire and looked like a franchise-changing player. But even Griffin III – perhaps the most relevant “ghost” Quinn alluded to – sees a promising future for Daniels and the Commanders.

“I think he’s handled this year like a franchise quarterback,” Griffin III told USA TODAY Sports. “That’s something that this team hasn’t had in decades.”

Daniels and the Commanders reeled off four straight victories after losing in Week 1 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The San Bernardino, California, native's completion percentage through his first four games was 82.1%, the highest of any player in NFL history over a four-game stretch, breaking a record that belonged to Tom Brady. He became the first quarterback to have two consecutive games with a completion of 85% or better. Despite a hip injury he suffered against the Carolina Panthers in Week 7, Daniels has thrown for 3,045 yards with 17 touchdowns and seven interceptions through 14 starts.

After his historic 2012 campaign, Griffin III acknowledged things went “sideways” for him in Washington. The devastating knee injury he suffered in the playoffs that season against the Seattle Seahawks did him no favors. Neither did the emergence of Cousins, who started for three seasons but likely won’t be facing Daniels and the Commanders when the Atlanta Falcons visit on Dec. 29.

“Jayden, I think, is off to a great start ... I think anything I would tell him, he would already know,” Cousins said earlier this season. “And he seems to be enjoying it, has a smile on his face, he's playing well.”

With managing partner Josh Harris and his ownership group, general manager Adam Peters and Quinn, the Commanders’ infrastructure is much healthier now for a young quarterback than it was when he starred for the franchise, Griffin III said.

“He doesn’t ‘need’ me. I never want people to feel like these guys ‘need’ someone, but to be able to use that experience, to help him navigate some of the things that affected you and your career?” said Griffin III, who formed a relationship with Daniels by calling three of his college games at LSU and has stayed in contact since the rookie landed with Washington. “I think that’s valuable to give back. That’s what I try to do, I try to approach it – but back then, I didn’t know what I know now. And I can use what I know now to help the next generation.”

While Daniels displayed a knowledge of the team’s quarterback struggles along with the tradition of Black signal-callers going back to Doug Williams, the fan base’s starvation for a franchise quarterback caught Griffin III by surprise. He didn’t grow up learning about sports in that way, he said.

“It’s early,” Williams told USA TODAY’s Jarrett Bell earlier this season. “You don’t want to put no pressure on the kid. You want him to play football. You don’t even want to bring it to his attention. You don’t even want to talk about it. We’ve still got a long way to go.

“The fans are excited, and they’ve got a reason to be excited. But if you work in the football office here, that’s what you try to protect against.”

Performance under pressure

That type of pressure could fluster any young professional, said Alex Smith, taken No. 1 by the San Francisco 49ers in 2005 before spending time with the Kansas City Chiefs and Washington.

“When you’re a top pick, that expectation’s there – to come in and turn the organization around. That’s part of the weight that I think QB’s have to deal with,” Smith told USA TODAY Sports.

Because there were six quarterbacks taken in the top 12 picks of the 2024 draft, they’ll all be compared to one another for their entire careers, Smith said – similar to how Griffin III and Andrew Luck were coupled as 2012 draftmates, or Smith and Aaron Rodgers from the Class of 2005.

“It just kind of continues to mount, just kind of continues to grow,” Smith said of the pressure.

Smith doesn’t know Daniels personally, but everything he’s heard from people in the building indicates that he’s somebody who is “so prepared for even the weight of that conversation, of being the savior.”

“That’s part of what Jayden here is battling – maybe the greatest start to a rookie season of all time and continuing to not let all of the hype – or any of the hype – get to him,” Smith said.

Joe Theismann, a Super Bowl-winning quarterback for Washington, said he’s seen Daniels handle his “fanship” up close. People ask him how Daniels can possibly deal with the expectations.

Theismann offers a one-word answer: “Heisman.”

Daniels, following three seasons at Arizona State, transferred to LSU in 2022 and won the 2023 Heisman Trophy.

“Being where he is, as far as the media goes, as far as the exposure goes, as far as the expectations go, it's not something new to him,” Theismann said. “It just hasn’t all of a sudden happened.”

About halfway through last season at LSU, he accepted that his name would be a constant part of the national conversation through the draft. He turned on the television and people were talking about him.

"It's kind of awkward to see people talk about you," Daniels said in October. "I don't really like it, so I kind of try to stay away from that. But it's kind of normal to me now."

And social media is a totally different realm of fan expectations and reaction.

"It's a lot. I mean, I see it," he said. "I don't really pay attention. I don't look too much into it, but just know I'll be seeing some stuff for sure. It is in the back of my mind for sure."

For Fitzpatrick, while evaluating college prospects, whether they’ve experienced adversity is something he monitors.

“It wasn't just a straight path for him to the Heisman and to the top of the NFL,” Fitzpatrick told USA TODAY Sports.

The transition to the NFL left quite an impression, though.

“It's almost as if Jayden doesn't know that football is supposed to be hard,” Fitzpatrick said. “When you watch it, he makes it look so easy. I go back to, you know, for him, one of the great things that he has going for right now is that he's so athletic and he's a really intelligent player.

“If he doesn't like what he's seeing again, going back to that, he has the ultimate ‘get-out-jail-free’ card, which is, he's going to be able to scramble around. He's going to be able to make plays either with his legs or he’s great at throwing on the run.”

And even though Fitzpatrick suffered a hip injury during the first half of the season-opener in 2021, his only game in Washington, he “definitely” sensed the desire from fans to have an answer at quarterback.

“I think the thing that appealed to me even a couple of years ago in Washington was there was a lot of talent,” Fitzpatrick, now an analyst with Amazon Prime Video, said. “You always talk about young guys walking into situations where there's a good infrastructure, and some of that is coaching and a lot of that is the players that you have around them.”

From rebuild to excitement

Ron Rivera was hired as head coach in 2020 and had a roster, particularly on defense, that looked ready to contend. But the revolving door at quarterback – Taylor Heinecke, Carson Wentz, Sam Howell and Kyle Allen all started for his teams – made that difficult beyond the 2020 NFC East title, which was won with a 7-9 record.

“When you’re looking for that guy, that’s the hardest thing to find,” Rivera told USA TODAY Sports. “There’s so much emphasis put into it.

“I really do see the improvement in them because of the play of the young quarterback and the last time we saw that was with RGIII when he was (with Washington) and he was healthy.”

Unlike with Griffin III, however, Rivera recognized almost immediately Washington fans’ clamoring for a quarterback to call their long-term answer.

“Mostly because having been in the league and trying to find that guy again and how hard it is, when you’re never set up to get that guy, that’s tough, that really is,” said Rivera, who was let go after last season and replaced with Quinn.

Smith said he understood that Washington was a proud, storied franchise.

“There have been little moments of success and nothing sustained and nothing, certainly, to the expectations of that fan base and organization,” said Smith, an analyst for ESPN.

At the late stage in his career when he arrived in Washington, he felt prepared to enter that type of environment and embraced it.

“It was an amazing challenge, probably short-lived, and also very cool – I loved the history of the organization and certainly the aspiration to get back to that,” Smith said. “It was not totally different from what I experienced with the Niners in that regard.”

During Rivera's tenure, the Commanders went from having a defense that was ready to be a contender without the proper quarterback to requiring an entire rebuild – starting at quarterback.

"I think that's been that's been the feeling in Washington for a while ... there's more excitement in Washington right now than maybe anywhere in the league and the fact that they found, I mean, new ownership and the fact that they found their guy quarterback," Fitzpatrick said.

Looking at the team now, Rivera sees a core of veterans and younger players to complement Daniels.

“You have an opportunity to establish who this team could be for the future,” he said.

On behalf of the fan base that had its collective patience tested, Smith said he's enjoyed watching the team compete for a division title ahead of schedule.

"They’ve deserved better for a long, long time,” he said. “Just to see the way the team is playing right now and the energy of the entire area, it’s been really cool to watch from afar.”

Quinn said he wanted Daniels to understand “there's only one name on the back of that jersey, and that's for him.” The coach also said he can’t wait to see who Daniels is becoming because he is a 24-year-old who is still growing.

“I don’t want to compare him to anybody but him,” Quinn said.

Not even a ghost.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jayden Daniels is outrunning the Washington Commanders' QB ghosts