I understand the hesitancy. We were burned buying into RGIII. We were burned by Chase Young. We can point at CJ Stroud.
RGIII didn’t flame out. He got hurt. And Jayden is a better passer AND runner than RGIII ever was. This ain’t some outlier year like Sam Darnold’s. This is what we’ve seen from Daniels since last year. He just looks like the same guy we scouted and drafted.
And with regards to CJ Stroud, he doesn’t have Daniels’ running ability. And we haven’t heard anything to suggest he has the same obsessive work ethic.
I’d be stunned if we didn’t win 11 games this year and we could well win 12. With one playmaker on offense, who is very good, but isn’t in the same class as a Ja’Marr Chase or Justin Jefferson. Our WR2 is hurt, and was WR 6 on Houston and got cut. Our OL is decent, but nothing special. I’d probably describe them as, “average”. And yet, we could go 12-5 with the offense carrying the team. And Daniels looks just as good against the Eagles as he did against Alabama.
Maybe he doesn’t grow into some high volume passing machine. But I just don’t see a fall off as we improve the roster around him, and he’s good enough to win a Super Bowl right now. Today.
Jayden is having a historically good season for a rookie. He has carried us. He has a really rare work ethic to go with his really rare physical traits.
I don’t think he’s guaranteed to produce on the level of Allen, Burrows, or Lamar, but even if he doesn’t, he’s a top 8 QB right now. And I do think he has a chance to get to the level of those 3 guys. He looked every bit as good a passer as Joe Burrow when he outplayed him carrying us to a win against Cincinnati.
Which is all to say, life is short. Jayden looks as promising as any QB I can remember, ever. He clearly has, “it”. I’m going to enjoy getting carried away. I don’t think we all need to stay measured. We can enjoy this, and if some freak thing happens, at least we got to enjoy it.
The other thing I will say is, Adam Peters has been pretty amazing so far. I don’t see him failing to provide weapons or a sufficiently good OL in the future. We aren’t going to hang Jayden out to dry with bad management decisions.