Can a new offense save Jayden Daniels from the Commanders’ QB curse?

ASHBURN, Va. — If you listen carefully to the Washington Commanders’ huddle, you’ll hear the tapestry of Jayden Daniels’ world come to life.

California street names from his childhood. His favorite designer brands. The NBA teams he follows closely in his downtime.

The plays he calls out are named after his old haunts and current obsessions. The coaching staff wants it that way.

When building an offense for one of the NFL’s brightest young stars, everything has to be tailored to his specifications — even down to the verbiage.

“We wanted every word to make sense, to mean something,” says offensive coordinator David Blough. “Then he can really take it home.”

But there’s an implication there, too. If they design it for him, he has to own it. All of it. And that includes his health.

In D.C., there is no topic that makes people wince quite like Daniels’ durability. Washington has seen meteoric quarterback rises before, only to be let down by the toll of injuries. A career ends. The odyssey to find the next franchise star begins. Rinse, repeat.

Robert Griffin III in 2012. Alex Smith in 2018. Even Joe Theismann, who suffered a career-ending compound fracture three years after winning the Super Bowl.

So when Daniels went down last year with a dislocated elbow, and a hamstring strain, and an ankle injury, the fears crept in. Is Daniels just another what-if?

The Commanders are desperately trying to avoid it. In need of a new offensive coordinator, they opted for an internal candidate who’d worked well with Daniels. They designed a system to insulate him from the hits. They signed more receivers to convince him he doesn’t need to be Superman.

“We certainly navigated risk with this system. But it is a contact sport,” Blough says. “You have to know when to give up.”

Daniels says he understands that.

“This is my team now,” he proclaimed.

But does that mean he’ll continue to put himself in harm’s way to try to carry it, or find the discretion needed to live for another play?

Running from the past

The graveyard of quarterbacks past was hard to miss in Washington’s practice facility this August. Just look at the jerseys. The fans filed into training camp wearing relics of old.

Plenty donned Daniels’ No. 5. But there were also No. 10s for Griffin. Number 11s for Smith. And one-off jerseys for the carousel of quarterbacks who followed over the last decade. Heinicke. Keenum. McCoy. Wentz. Howell.

Daniels saw all of them as he signed autographs. But he didn’t give it much thought.

He intends for his story to be different.

Of course, Daniels’ legend started better than any of them with the best rookie season in the history of the league. He threw for over 3,500 yards and engineered five game-winning drives. He launched a 52-yard Hail Mary to beat the Chicago Bears at home, instantly becoming a household name.

Some thought it was luck. His coaches and teammates perferred a different explaination.

“I believe in 5,” offensive lineman Tyler Biadasz said at the time.

Whatever it was, Washington used Daniels’ magic to make the NFC championship game for the first time in 33 years.

General manager Adam Peters proclaimed Daniels the franchise star and immediately shifted the organizaiton into win-now mode. The team shed draft capital to bring in Pro Bowlers Laremy Tunsil at left tackle and Deebo Samuel at wide receiver. The championship window finally pried open.

But, just as quickly as it came, it went.

Daniels opened 2025 with a knee injury against the Green Bay Packers in Week 2, a game in which he saw 25 pressures and took four sacks. He missed a few weeks, came back and strained his hamstring against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 7.

Two weeks later, he was nearly carted off the field with a dislocated elbow against the Seattle Seahawks. He returned for one half against the Minnesota Vikings only to hurt it again and miss the rest of the year.

Some of the injuries were flukes. Others were the product of a quarterback trying to do too much.

It was bound to come sometime. As an instinctual playmaker, perpetually convinced a big play is on the other side of his next risk, danger was baked into the wizardry. He did it at LSU, where he won the Heisman Trophy thanks to his 50-touchdown heroics. And he did it in the league.

“I’ve always been in offenses that put a lot on me,” he said.

But, after Daniels’ string of injuries, backup quarterback Marcus Mariota pulled him aside. Mariota was one of the original dual-threat quarterbacks, piling up 58 touchdowns in his Heisman campaign at Oregon. In the NFL, Mariota said, everyone eventually meets his match.

“You come from high school, where guys can’t even [grab] your towel. In college you are running through arm tackles. But here 50-yard runs are now five,” Blough said.

That realization didn’t calm the fans. They’d seen this movie before, too many times.

Griffin also won the division as a rookie and claimed NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year. He blew out his knee in a snowy playoff game and never truly recovered. Three years later he was off the team. A Heisman Trophy winner, gone too soon.

“I understand the comparisons,” said Logan Paulsen, who played with Griffin in Washington. “Because there is some crossover in terms of their trajectory. Amazing first year, then the injury.”

But, as Washington worried, the Commanders and Daniels developed a plan. They spent the last nine months setting it motion.

From the ground up

In the first practice of Daniels’ rookie minicamp, Blough had an observation for then-offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury.

“Somebody taught this young man to play quarterback,” he said. “His feet were so calm. Just such natural timing.”

They ran him through the gamut. Five steps and a hitch. Seven steps and a dart. Three steps and a quick slant.

“It was so rhythmic,” Blough said.

If Daniels ever needed to run a pro-style offense, he’d be just fine, Blough thought.

And the opportunity presented itself this winter. After Washington went 5-12 and Daniels sat out more than half the season, head coach Dan Quinn thought Kingsbury’s coaching style had reached its ceiling.

Kingsbury’s scheme was predicated on keeping it vanilla and going fast. He honed it during the peak run-and-gun days of the Big 12, first in Houston and then on his own at Texas Tech.

The scheme’s simplicity allowed quarterbacks to pick on individual matchups. There were very few motions or presnap reads. The signal-caller’s job was to go through his options and, if nobody was open, either make a play or scramble. It was elevated backyard football, which can mean freedom for quarterbacks like Daniels.

The problem is, if offenses don’t have the athletes to win matchups, the scheme gets exposed quickly. Pass rushers can easily tee off on the quarterback.

Daniels was sacked 47 times his rookie year. He endured 18 more in his second season before his body finally gave in.

Blough presented his idea as the remedy. In Detroit, he played for Ben Johnson, who became famous for his pro-style attack that schemed receivers open. Blough showed Daniels clips of Lions quarterback Jared Goff operating in the system, which helped him ressurect his career after the Rams dumped him.

He added in the Bears’ Caleb Williams, who followed a dismal rookie season with a standout second year once Johnson became head coach. Receivers were running free everywhere. For an accurate quarterback, it was dart practice.

The idea was for Daniels not to have to play hero ball. The offense was designed to always scheme the first or second read open, not needing a safety valve. But Blough needed to implement a complicated system of play-action runs and presnap motions. Daniels wouldn’t be ad-libbing, instead using his timing and letting it rip.

Quinn loved the idea. Whereas past Washington quarterbacks, namely Griffin, didn’t have the passing ability to fall back on, Daniels did. It would keep him off the injury list, too, because defenses couldn’t pin their ears back. Williams took only 24 sacks last year. Goff was higher but still under 40.

“He’s elite with the ball in his hand,” Quinn said.

Daniels was a little more hesitant. He’s never operated under center in his career. He never even ran a huddle.

So Blough built the system for him. He let Daniels choose the names of plays. He showed him clips of Green Bay’s Jordan Love and Los Angeles’ Matthew Stafford, seeing if any concepts piqued his interest.

In practice, Blough stuck a GoPro on his helmet. It wasn’t to see anything. He wanted the audio to hear how Daniels relayed the plays to his teammates, simplifying the play calls as needed. “There’s some longer play calls where me and Blough gotta have talks about,” Daniels said with a laugh.

The rest of the offense adapted quickly.

“His command in the offense is seamless at this point,” offensive lineman Josh Conerly Jr. said. “I don’t think there will be a lot of him just getting beat up and having to run.”

Others agreed.

“The last offense put a lot of pressure on him. Now you decrease that exposure, and I think you’re going to get better highs,” Paulsen said. “It deleverages the position. He doesn’t have to be running at 100 every single play.”

Washington just had to see it in a game.

Into the deep end

Before training camp started, Quinn mapped the practice plan for the five-week period. He scripted Daniels to take more than 500 snaps — half a season’s worth.

He also instituted call-it periods, during which Blough and Daniels had to go up against Washington’s defense not knowing the looks that were coming. It simulated a game.

The last test was a preseason game in Detroit. Daniels played only three snaps, but Washington saw the seeds of the offseason produce. On the first play, receiver Treylon Burks was wide open in the middle of the field. Daniels was pressured, but the first read was free. Daniels ended up throwing the ball away.

Blough took it as a positive. Daniels didn’t resort to his old habits.

“Throw out of bounds is the right call. Go play it for the next down,” Quinn said.

Now, starting in Philadephia in Week 1, the keys are in Daniels’ hands. It’s his offense, his decision-making, his accuracy that will decide whether he is Washington’s long-awaited franchise star, or just another heartbreak.