Before this season, any Washington Commanders fan — shoot, any reasonable NFL fan — would have begun a ranking of quarterbacks taken in the 2024 draft with Jayden Daniels and then sorted through the rest. Prefer Drake Maye over Caleb Williams? Fine. Think Michael Penix Jr. has more potential than Bo Nix? Whatever. Daniels was the man around whom to build a team. Everyone else competed for second place.
How’s that ranking look now?
Don’t answer. Not yet. This season could seem lost. If Daniels finds himself, it won’t be.
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Here’s what is important about the last six games of a Commanders season gone awry: that Daniels not only reappears but re-establishes himself. For now, he is out because of a dislocated elbow. He has played just once in the past month. When he misses Sunday night’s game against Denver — as Coach Dan Quinn said he’s expected to — he will have sat out as many times as he has suited up.
That’s no way to build on a meteoric rookie season. It’s a way to stagnate. In 2025, Daniels has not yet played in and completed three straight games. All that makes it imperative, when he’s finally healthy, that he play as much as possible. Shut him down?
“That’s not something we really discussed internally,” Quinn said Monday.
Good. Get him out there. Get him more reps. Get him in a rhythm. Send him into an important offseason with the full confidence of his fan base behind him.
“I got to go out there and play football,” Daniels told reporters at a team charity event Tuesday. “If I’m back out there, I’m healthy and I’m ready to go, I want to be out there.”
Great. We’re all on the same page. Now, back to those rankings.
It’s amazing how much can change in a year in the NFL. The 2024 New England Patriots went 4-13 and fired their first-year coach. The 2025 New England Patriots have won nine straight and are leading the AFC playoff race. The 2024 Chicago Bears went 5-12 to finish last in the NFC North. The 2025 Chicago Bears are 8-3 and lead what might be the toughest division in the sport.
Hmmm. Look at the quarterbacks of those two teams. Maye, the third pick in the 2024 draft, is an MVP candidate for the ascendant Patriots. Williams, the top pick in that same draft, is unlocking his potential under new coach/offensive guru Ben Johnson.
The second pick, sandwiched between those two, was Daniels.
It’s still possible to make the case that Daniels was the best quarterback in that draft and Daniels will be the best player going forward. No rookie ever completed more than Daniels’s 69 percent of his passes. No rookie quarterback ever rushed for more than Daniels’s 891 yards. Just four rookies ever threw for more than Daniels’s 25 touchdowns. Just two rookies ever posted a passer rating higher than Daniels’s 100.1. If this was the starting point, what might the finished product look like?
A year later, we just don’t know. He suffered a sprained knee in Week 2, then a hamstring injury in Week 7, then the elbow dislocation in the waning moments of a blowout loss to Seattle in Week 9. In a season-opening win against the New York Giants, Daniels threw for 233 yards and ran for 68 more. Last season, he matched or topped those passing totals 10 times — including all three playoff games — and rushed for more yards five times. This year, he hasn’t approached those numbers.
One other development at the Commanders’ training facility in Ashburn this week: Wide receiver Terry McLaurin returned to practice for the first time since aggravating a quad injury Oct. 27 in Kansas City. Remember when McLaurin didn’t practice during training camp because he wanted a better contract? It’s fair to wonder about the impact of that decision on the Commanders’ season as a whole.
At the time, there was some solace because Daniels and McLaurin had established such a rapport in 2024. Yes, they connected 70 times for 944 yards and 12 scores. No, that doesn’t make them Joe Montana and Jerry Rice in terms of their familiarity with each other.
This year, Daniels has completed exactly seven balls to his supposedly favorite target. They simply haven’t been on the field simultaneously. They need more reps. They need more time.
That’s how this season could be salvaged. It’s not by beating the Broncos — and Nix, who now has thrown more passes than any of the quarterbacks taken in the 2024 draft, playoff games included. Indeed, we’ve reached the point in this Washington football season that matches those from so many seasons past. Losses now mean improved draft picks for a team with needs at wide receiver and along the defensive line and at cornerback, for starters.
The salvaging, then, comes in getting Daniels back on the field and keeping him there. There are games at Minnesota, at the Giants, home and away with Philadelphia and home against Dallas. There is opportunity in each of them, four against the NFC East.
The Commanders might not be able to use this season to make another deep run into the playoffs. But if their fan base once again can answer the question, “Who’s the best quarterback from the 2024 draft?” with an easy, confident and quick response of, “Jayden Daniels,” then order will be restored, all will not be lost, and the focus of the offseason can be on fixing everything but the quarterback.
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