Kurt Warner, a multi-time All-Pro and MVP and Super Bowl champion, is going to be on the radio call of Super Bowl LIX for Westwood One on Sunday, but he was able to carve out some time for Grant & Danny this week on Radio Row to talk about the big game.
But also, he gave GP a little state of the union on the QB position, and if there’s a guy who knows what it’s like to be so good in your first year as an NFL QB, it’s Warner, who won the MVP in his first year as the Rams’ starter – and yeah, Jayden Daniels is like that.
“He's a really good player. I know sometimes we get caught up in rookies aren't supposed to be successful, but I can go back to '99 when I felt I was a good player and so I played well, and that's what I think about Jayden Daniels,” Warner said. “You watched him last year win the Heisman, and coming out, you knew that if everything you saw on tape translated to the NFL, this kid's gonna be a phenomenal player, because he can do everything really, really well. And I think that's what we saw this year.”
The best part, to him, is that the ice water we saw in Daniels’ veins was noticeable to everyone.
“You saw a guy who played great in the biggest moments, and it made you say wow, but what you start to realize is all he did in the biggest moments was play like he did the rest of the game,” Warner said. “Who he was normally was what we saw in those biggest moments: he didn't panic, didn't put pressure on himself, didn't try to play outside of himself. He was who he was, and it was fun to watch him play the way he handled himself in those big moments and in those big games. I think that's what we saw this year; even though we were all in awe of it, to me it was just a really good player showing up and playing well every week.”
So, what does Daniels need to do going into Year 2 to keep that up, if anything?
“Jayden's gonna put in the work, and sometimes, you have off games or off seasons, but you don’t go into things thinking, he's gonna have a sophomore slump, or, he's got to be better than he was this year,” Warner said.
“To me, it's always about letting it play its course. I'm always a believer of give me three years of seeing a guy, because there's going to be ebbs and flows, but then I can tell you who I believe he is as a quarterback. So I think the hard thing is having a year like this is you guys are going to come back and go, if he doesn't do better than this, then what’s wrong? But if he just drops a little bit from what he did this year, it's still gonna be a phenomenal season for him, so we have to put things in perspective. You've got a really good quarterback who I believe is going to be good for a long time, let him show us who he is over a few years and let it play out – I think you're going to see that Jayden Daniels is going to be a solid NFL starter for a long time.”
Take a listen to Warner’s entire chat with GP above, which includes the QB State of the Union and more!