A look at Jayden Daniels performance in his first career victory, against the New York Giants.
The good
In his second game as a pro, Daniels led his first game winning drive. Hopefully there will be many, many more but the first one is always special. Well done, young man.
Jayden displayed good accuracy this week, completing 23 of 29 passes for 226 yards. He added 44 yards on 10 carries. He once again threw for no touchdowns or interceptions, though he was bailed out by Zach Ertz pulling an under thrown ball away from Giants DB Jason Pinnock in the second quarter.
Speaking of Ertz, he and Daniels have built a solid rapport. Against the Giants, connected four times for 62 yards.
Daniels also hooked up with Austin Ekeler three times for 47 yards.
It is typical for a young passer to lean on tight ends and running backs, but Daniels and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury worked hard to get the wide receivers more involved this week. Newcomer Noah Brown led the way with 56 yards on three catches, while top dog Terry McLaurin caught six balls for only 22 yards. This can be chalked up to a conservative passing attack and solid tackling by the Giants’ secondary.
In all, Jayden completed passes to eight different receivers in week 2.
A big hit on a second quarter scramble knocked the wind out of, and some sense into, Daniels. After sitting out a play to ungoogle his eyes, there was a notable difference in Jayden’s pocket presence. He was much more effective climbing the pocket and keeping his eyes downfield as the game progressed. This is good news because I’d rather not have to be stuck writing a weekly progress report on Jeff Driskel.
The not so good
Daniels exposed himself to multiple hits again this week, even being forced to miss a play in the second quarter after a shot to the ribs. In addition, he took a Sam Howell-like 5 sacks, some were on the offensive line and some were on Daniels looking confused by the coverage. Jayden was much more aware of his surroundings after getting briefly knocked out of the game, but his ability to protect himself remains a concern.
Giants defensive coordinator Shane Bowen did a good job of disguising coverages to confuse Daniels, particularly in the red zone. The offense made six trips inside the Giants’ 20 yard line and came away with zero touchdowns. That wasn’t all on Daniels as the team committed miscues on every red zone visit, but there were some missed opportunities. Daniels is still learning that “open” doesn’t look the same at this level. This is a part of his growth process that may cause some headaches this year.
There were a couple of mental mistakes by Jayden that will not show up on the stat sheet. Early in the fourth quarter, Daniels could be seen urging the crowd to make noise while the team was setting up a direct snap play to Brian Robinson inside the 10. Sam Cosmi jumped offsides and the team ended up settling for another field goal. Daniels didn’t cause the penalty but the added crowd noise certainly didn’t help. Then on the game sealing drive, Daniels allowed himself to be tackled out of bounds as the team was working to bleed the clock, allowing the Giants to preserve their final timeout. This didn’t end up hurting the team but I’m sure it will be brought up in the film room this week.
The verdict
Despite not scoring any touchdowns, there were some very positive steps taken this week in Jayden Daniels’ development. Quarterback is really hard to play in the NFL and, despite having much to work on, Jayden seems up to the task.
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