Jay Gruden thinks Jayden Daniels is a Top 3 QB in the NFL right now
During his weekly visit with Grant & Danny on Monday, Jay Gruden was explaining why he thinks the Commanders can win double-digit games and even the NFC East, and within that answer, he said he thinks Jayden Daniels ‘is a Top 3 quarterback in the NFL right now.’
High praise in a league where three different signal-callers have won the last three MVP Awards – can he really be that high just five weeks into his rookie season?
“Obviously Lamar is playing crazy, but the normal good players aren’t lighting up the world statistically,” Gruden said. “You talk about Burrow and Mahomes there, and Sam Darnold is 5-0 but has only had a couple really good games…but Jayden, the way he’s running the football with 250 yards rushing already, he’s thrown for over 1000 yards, and his completion percentage is high. There’s no other quarterback in the league other than maybe Lamar right now who can say that, so I think he’s playing as good as anybody in the league right now.”
So given how he’s playing and how the Commanders are responding, how do you keep that going without Daniels buying into the hype too much and straying from the plan?
“Yeah, you gotta keep coaching the scheme, right? That’s number one, keep coaching the scheme and how you're going to attack the opposing defense,” Gruden said. “Baltimore is gonna have a different way of playing defense, so you gotta have plays that attack that and continue to coach them up, and then when plays break down, you just say, ‘do your thing, protect the football, and protect yourself.’ But, I don't think you can overcoach him when it comes to his ability to extend plays; that’s a God-given talent that he has, and you just got to ride with it and have some fun and, watch him and pat him on the head when he comes off the sideline, because he'll usually make it into a good play.”
Keep doing that, and keep doing what he’s doing when he does pass the ball: get everybody involved and don’t force things because it’s a first read, a designed play, or simply set to feed a star.
“Jayden does a good job spreading the ball out; he doesn't play favorites or force-feed one guy, and you can tell that the team is really unselfish, which is important, too,” Gruden said. “You gotta have a team of unselfish players that don't care about fantasy numbers; they're gonna go out and block when they're asked to block, or run a decoy route when they're asked, but when their number is called and they're open, they know Jayden is gonna give them a shot to catch it and they're gonna produce. It just works all the way around, but you got to have the right type of players in your building. I think Dan Quinn and the organization have done a great job of getting those players in here. They got some good players that really helped out this football team, and they're all unselfish good players.”
And no, don’t worry if this season makes Kliff Kingsbury a hiot head coaching candidate again next winter, because as Gruden says, that’s why you train your assistants to run the system for your players, who are the most important piece of the puzzle.
“Kliff will probably get another job for sure, but that’s why you have to groom coaches on your staff to keep doing what they’ve been doing there…and sometimes the quarterback makes the coach look a lot better,” Gruden said. “I'm not putting any shade on Kingsbury whatsoever, don’t get me wrong, but I think when you have an outstanding quarterback like Jayden Daniels, the next coordinator will be just fine. Tom Brady had about seven coordinators, and they were all just fine. And look at Shanahan with Matt Ryan and all these talented players he’s had in San Fran. You have to have players who can execute, especially at the QB position – it makes things a hell of a lot easier for a play-caller.”
