He can no longer duck the accusations about a sophomore slump, but Jayden Daniels can’t blame injuries for all of his problems, not when the Washington Commanders’ quarterback is guilty of some “worrisome” habits.
Those habits are “most worrisome” outside the pocket, according to The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz. He focuses on “Daniels’s scrambling rate is up by 3 percentage points over last season. That’s a number Washington wanted to bring down after Daniels scrambled on nearly 13 percent of his dropbacks as a rookie. His scramble rate is up to 15.7 percent in 2025.”
Running more often has become a problem for Daniels for several reasons beyond the obvious. Admittedly, the obvious concerns about the second-overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft being exposed to more hits appear well-founded now he’s out with yet another injury this season.
There may be deeper problems, though, with Ruiz identifying two trends concerning enough to derail Daniels’ development.
Jayden Daniels’ Scrambling is Creating Problems
The Commanders may want Daniels to run less, but the fact head coach Dan Quinn and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury haven’t coached him out of the habit is a problem.
Ruiz views the issues on two levels. First, he cautioned “if Daniels were doing a better job of protecting himself while running, this would be less of an issue. While the knock that took him out of the Vikings game on Sunday didn’t come on a scramble, he has been exposing himself to a lot of needless hits. According to Pro Football Focus, Daniels has slid just four times on 41 scrambles.”
Daniels “protecting himself on one out of every 10 scrambles” is clearly a formula for some brutal hits and resultant durability issues. Yet, these numbers also quantify the difficult balancing act Washington’s QB1 faces.
He’s a dual-threat playmaker whose versatility can undermine defenses on any play. Like when No. 5 scampered free to convert on 4th-and-11 and help beat the Philadelphia Eagles last season.
Taking this away from Daniels would limit his effectiveness as a player. That’s not something the Commanders can afford from their franchise quarterback, but they need Daniels to make smarter choices and adapt his game.
Ruiz has an idea of what those things might look like.
Commanders Need Better Decision-Making at QB
Daniels must start making better decisions between run and pass once he’s healthy. As Ruiz put it, “I’m not necessarily advocating that Daniels take fewer trips outside the pocket, but I would like to see the QB throw more often when he does escape. Only 39 percent of his out-of-pocket dropbacks have ended in a pass attempt this season, per TruMedia. That’s easily the lowest mark in the league, and only Justin Fields (45 percent) and Drake Maye (49 percent) are within 10 percentage points of him. The number was higher for Daniels last season, at 42 percent, so this issue seems to be getting worse.”
Moving the pocket and throwing on the run can be powerful weapons in the right offense. It’s on Kingsbury to lean more heavily into designed rollouts and bootlegs to get Daniels off-platform, but still with better options to throw than run.
Drawing up plays like these is just one part of the solution. The other has little to do with the Kingsbury playbook, and more to do with the Commanders adding superior personnel.
There have been too many rapid breakdowns in protection, while Daniels has also had an uninspired cast of receivers to catch his passes. Kingsbury has tried to compensate by using an extra running back, as well as by changing the way Daniels hands the ball off to help create confusion.
Those are interesting adjustments, but they are ground-based. Kingsbury’s change-ups are also designed more to protect Daniels than force him to rely on his arm more often.
That’s the necessary next step in his development if Daniels is going to mature into a true star signal-caller.
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