Kevin Sheehan explains why Jayden Daniels is NOT RG3 v2.0

Fear not, those who worry about 2024 being 2012 part deux: Jayden Daniels is NOT RG3 v2.0, or so Kevin Sheehan says.

“There is, in some of the fan base, fear that Daniels is going to be an RG3 repeat,” Kevin said as he read some comments from listeners who fit that mold, “and I don’t know what you can do about him reaching out to RG3 for advice, but I have a feeling Jayden Daniels seems pretty comfortable in the decisions he'll make on his own. He's got a very good friend in Brandon Aiyuk, who he has absolutely leaned on, and I don't even know if RG3 would give him bad advice. Yes, we understand that there is still this very self-involved part of him, and maybe even a delusional kind of look back on his time here, but I hope Daniels has good judgment when it comes to the advice he decides to take and the advice he decides to pass on – and I want to begin there totally knocking down this idea that Daniels is RG3.”

Football-wise, Kevin says, Daniels is a more advanced passer than RG3 was, and in his opinion, a better runner, with ‘vision and elusiveness in the open field to go with the speed.’ But the biggest difference?

“This is not someone that you have to build a brand new offense around and create dual-threat opportunities. Daniels is an advanced passer, so you don't have to create a dual threat attack for Daniels to put him on the field,” Kevin said. “Cooley mentioned in his film breakdown of Daniels that you're going to have some of that because he's unbelievable as a runner, but it's not imperative that you build it into your offense to get him on the field. He has maturity and poise as a pocket passer, and that was NEVER Robert.
He just lacked so much as a rookie passer that Jayden doesn’t.”

That doesn’t mean he’ll be perfect, so Kevin preaches patience, and yes, there are similarities (especially in how they threaten defenses) – but even within that, Daniels has traits RG3 doesn’t or didn’t.

“RG3 was more of a track straight line guy, and that's not Daniels, who was a big-time basketball player. Are they similar in how much their mobility can be used by the coaching staff from a creative standpoint? Yes, but there's a big difference: the Shanahans were forced to build a new way of playing football in the NFL to get Robert on the field as a rookie,” Sheehan said. “With Jayden, Kliff Kingsbury will be creative. He doesn’t need to avoid anything, which was necessary to get Robert on the field. They never thought that there wasn't a chance that Robert could develop into a more polished pocket thrower, they just felt he needed a lot of time – and it was about Dan and Bruce understanding that to draft him, you're gonna have to change and you're gonna have to become creative football-wise.”

There are other things, too, and you can listen to Kevin’s entire soliloquy on it above, but we leave it here:

“The single biggest difference beyond the football stuff is that RG3 got drafted by a team owned by Dan Snyder. There was never much of a chance for him to succeed in the organization that he was drafted by, because Dan was one of those star cuddlers,” Kevin said. “Jayden Daniels isn't going to have to deal with any of that, we don't think. RG3 was a one-man hashtagging self-promoter, but Snyder made it worse; he allowed and enabled it, when most organizations would have shut it down immediately or recognized it in their evaluation.”