The Commanders have declined to name Jayden Daniels the starting quarterback so far this preseason, and that will continue for at least the first bit of camp.
Speaking together in a joint press conference on the day veterans reported to camp, head coach Dan Quinn and GM Adam Peters reiterated that even though JD5 is the No. 2 pick and clearly the QB of the future, there’s not going to be just a simple anointment to that throne.
“It’s not a secret, but it is a journey and a process, and so as we're going, when he's ready, we'll know and when he's ready, he'll also know,” DQ said. “As far as reps go, obviously with him and Marcus and moving around, there'll be certain days that will feature one over another, but through practices and scrimmages and preseason games all the way down, that's where the journey will take us. Not trying to hold back the info, but when we know we'll say it.”
Quinn has worked with some talented young quarterbacks in his career, from Russell Wilson to Matt Ryan to Dak Prescott, and knows ‘it’s not one size fits all’ in terms of development and things aren’t linear, which is one of the reasons why he likes to have a plan of what he needs to see at the end of camp and works towards that.
“I think everybody can see when that's happening, when they're ready, and the team knows and the coaches know,” Peters said. “So you don't want to fast track it, you don't want to slow it down, you just want to let it happen naturally. And I know these guys would be great in doing that.”
“This is an extremely motivated player, but as we’re going through the whole process, if we are all about competition, we’re not going to miss one step of their development,” Quinn added. “That’s what this time of year is for, so we’re going to use all of that time.”
There will be mistakes along the way, but they’re ready to handle those – when JP Finlay asked about the Brandon Aiyuk situation, Adam Peters bluntly said ‘we handled that internally and we’re unconcerned with that’ – but what’s past is past, and now, it’s go time for real.
“Sometimes at the beginning of training camp, I like to think to the end of it and then try to work backwards; how do we get things done that we wanna get done? And you create a map to go back from there,” Quinn said. “So there are so many things that I'm looking forward to, but to sum it up, this camp will be challenging, it'll be demanding, and it's also gonna be fun as hell. This is where we start writing the chapter of what this 2024 Commanders team will be about, so having fun and working really hard, those two things should be synonymous. Let's get it rolling.”