We know that Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, and Drake Maye are their teams’ futures, and it’s almost certain in most minds that Williams is the Week 1 starter in Chicago – but is that, and should that, be the case in both DC and Foxboro?
“No way Williams isn’t starting Week 1; he’s got an unbelievable situation, maybe the best group around him that any young quarterback ever has,” Grant Paulsen said Wednesday, with Danny Rouhier replying that “what they’ve done is the blueprint.”
The same, it seems, goes for Daniels.
“How could he not start the first game for Washington? It would make no sense. Frankly, it would be really alarming, and I would say the chances are barely over zero that he wouldn't start the first game of the year,” GP said. “Part of the beauty of Jayden Daniels, what you like about his profile, is how much football he played. He threw 1400 passes in college; he was completing passes to Brandon Aiyuk who has been running wild in the San Francisco offense for years! He played in 2019 before COVID as a freshman at Arizona State, so if he's not ready to play in week one, that would be strange.”
“I'm trying to think of a scenario where he wouldn't…like, how disastrous would the preseason have to be? How awful would things have to be for him not to be out there?” Danny Rouhier responded.
“Assuming he’s healthy, how bad would he have to play for healthy Daniels to not start over Marcus Mariota?” GP shot back. “I don't think there's a level, like, I don't care if he stinks. But how bad can you really be in the preseason when you're playing a drive in a game, then you're playing maybe a quarter in another, then you're playing maybe a half in the third, if they do it even that much with him. I don't think you can be bad enough to not start in that limited sample and in action that doesn't even matter. It matters to his development, he needs to be on the field, but the results don't matter.
I don't think an athlete of his caliber could be bad enough.”
Cool, and probably how it should be – but for all you Team Maye folks, that’s ‘a fun one’ to GP.
“We had a lot of guests on the show when we were trying to figure out what Washington was gonna do, and a lot of them, the No. 2 was McCarthy, not Maye,” Grant said. “A lot of people said that Drake Maye needs to sit – his footwork is too raw, too many sloppy misses, has to work on his mechanics – and I think it's very possible after they went and got Jacoby Brissett, who was outstanding here last year and was solid in Cleveland, I could absolutely see Brissett starting a few games. They're so devoid of talent, they're gonna play young receivers a lot – do you want their first game and Maye's first game to be together? Maybe you just think he's good enough that he'll overcome, but you'd almost rather Jacoby Brissett help get those guys acts together. Those little conversations about the game, you might be better off with Brissett having them in September than Drake Maye.”
“So generally, it's not a rule because I have enough exceptions to it, but almost every case for me, if I'm drafting a quarterback high or the first round, I think the best thing to do is to play that player,” Danny said. “You find out if they're not able to overcome stuff, you find out how they handle adversity, because you're probably starting on a bad team and don't have an established quarterback ahead of them 90 something percent of the time – this is a case where I would not.”
And yes, it’s for the same reasons GP laid out.
“I think New England is so bad, so devoid of talent and have a lot of unproven coaches that may end up being great – we have no idea if Jerod Mayo is excellent, or what everything's gonna look like – but I think they're so devoid of talent on an offense that anybody that steps in is going to fail and be damaged forever. I don't think Mac Jones started out that terrible, but he’s now nuclear waste, and that’s the story here: forget about reverse car wash, you're going into a pig pen. This, to me, is a disaster, and I would not damage the kid. They probably don't think about themselves that way internally, but I think they’re disgusting and awful and terrible, and I would not throw the kid into that fire. I bet you they do though.”
That all said…
“I would start him in the first game,” GP said. “I’m a believer not in that you can't sit guys, but I'm a believer that his athleticism, which I think in the same way that Drake Maye's passing abilities got underappreciated and undervalued in the draft process, I think his running and his Josh Allen dual-threat type abilities got underappreciated and undervalued.
So I think there will be enough of that early on that can really help him, and I would tap into that heavily. So I would play him over Brissett.”