Taylor Kelly has been working with Jayden Daniels, alongside John Beck and others, at 3DQB in SoCal for years, and back in October, Kevin Sheehan had him on the show to give us a little primer of what we were already seeing from Daniels.
Here we are three months later with Daniels having led the Commanders to the NFC Title Game, and after seeing now 19 pro games for his protégé, Kelly is still amazed at what he’s done.
“It's unbelievable what he's been able to do this year, with a new team, head coach, GM, and offensive coordinator,” Kelly told Kevin. “It's been amazing to see how fast they've made this transition, and such a fast impact across the league.”
Kelly tries to watch each game live but also will always watch the all-22, and sends Jayden feedback and video notes every week to try to keep Jayden on the right track mechanically. The performance is up to Jayden and Kliff Kingsbury, of course, but from what Kelly is seeing, that’s going pretty damn well.
“The dude is playing out of his mind, and running the offense the way it should be run,” Kelly said. “He knows exactly what the defense is getting lined up to in pre-snap, and he gets into the right play, different checks, and gets the ball where it needs to go. He has a lot of trust in his teammates.”
It’s been so good that Kelly really couldn’t give Sheehan anything concrete Jayden needs to improve on from a macro level, in part because he doesn’t know Kingsbury’s offense like Daniels does, but FINISH.
“From an overall standpoint just watching him progress through concepts, I don't see many that he's missed or hung on too much. He goes to the right spot every single time, and what I love about him is the ability to just go through his progressions so fast,” Kelly said. “If a defender takes a couple steps this way, he's off of it, versus like, let me hang on to this to see if Terry wins on this. He's playing the game and trusting what he sees, and he's playing at a very high level from a mental standpoint in the biggest moments in games.”
Take a listen to Kelly’s entire visit this week with Kevin above!