Jayden Daniels' 'work ethic, mindset' first impressed Dan Quinn the most, he tells Kevin Sheehan
Adam Peters was hired a few weeks before Dan Quinn arrived in Washington so the Commanders GM was already pretty involved in scouting Jayden Daniels. But after the two started looking at game film early in the pre-draft process, the quarterback was "one of the first ones" they watched together.
Quinn told Kevin Sheehan he saw Daniels "making big plays" on tape and "saw the dual-threat" capabilities, but "what impressed me about him was really – this is gonna sound unusual – the work ethic and the mindset that is absolutely he's gonna go to any lengths to compete and find a way."
The Commanders HC told Team 980 he heard that about Daniels from LSU - including his OC – and from Herm Edwards, QB's former coach at Arizona State.
"And they all kinda had this same theme about what he stood for as a competitor and I saw the tape as the ball player and that was easy evaluation," Quinn said, adding that "finding out what the man was like behind the helmet, that was what I was really excited to see."
Quinn continued: "During the rookie camp and through the OTAs, I saw it. It was like so easy to see, he has the confidence of an older player, but the humility and the hard work of a rookie. And I though, what a great blend of confidence and humility, because if you're too much of one, you come across as ego or too much humility and defer everything and 'whatever you thinks best,' he has just the right ratio of both.
"And I think that's why so many of his teammates have gravitated toward him. Not because of his talent, but because of the talent, the work ethic, the swagger all that brings into that position."
Quinn said that the rookie passer is "quietly" the first one there doing all of the extra preparation he needs to do, but on the practice field is being loud and talking a lot across the line of scrimmage with veteran linebacker Bobby Wagner, which has been "fun to hear."
"All his teammates know the work that he puts in because he can deliver quickly and process it on the field," the head coach said, before adding that he thought veteran tight end Zach Ertz said it best when he said, "Some people said this kid's gonna be good, and Zach said, 'He's already good.'"
The head coach said the quarterback has "a bit of California cool in him" and that "you don't get him out of whack too many times, he's able to handle those moments and he's not uptight and overtrying, he's somebody who stays in that pocket of doing things right, staying after it, and he can really stay into it for a really long time which not everybody has that kind of focus, but he does."
"It was cool to see him go through this process to earn the starting job here, we didn't want to just give it to him," he said. "If our central theme of this program was going to be about competing, we weren't going to be true to the program if we didn't have everybody compete."
Looking ahead to the regular season, Quinn wants his rookie QB to "stay in the pocket that he's in right now" to "play the position well" and work through his progressions and continue to be in this mindset of his decision-making of "knowing where to go with the ball, in and out of plays" and that is the head coach's expectation.
"Not to overtly, stay in this pocket where he's at, because the things that he does very well, we're gonna feature," Quinn told Sheehan. "Don't have to put the cape on and play out of his mind, he's gonna play his way, which is really consistently good. And that's what I'm looking for from him."
